Pebble Health: Democratizing American Health Care for Small Businesses

Banks are entrusted with people’s life savings. Insurance companies are entrusted with upholding committed terms when disaster strikes. Perhaps most important, health care providers are entrusted with millions of lives. It is imperative that when someone needs health services at a moments notice, they can dependably seek help. This holds particularly true for even peripheral yet essential health services such as mental health, fertility, disability, and dependent care.

All of these industries have immense regulation, which create complexity that few founders can effectively tackle. In the case of health care, such regulation manifests into high barriers to entry through lack of customization and sky-high pricing. This makes it especially challenging for small businesses to obtain competitive best-in-class health benefits for their employees. Health care needs a modern solution that democratizes care against regulation. In today’s environment, small businesses and startups are distinctly disadvantaged when competing against large companies with dedicated teams to manage benefit selection.

Here at XYZ, we are constantly driven to support companies that define new spaces, especially in highly regulated sectors. We understand the immense privilege and responsibility of taking care of community, particularly in American health care. That’s where Pebble Health comes in.

Pebble Health allows any small business to offer customized health care plans to their employee population without the hassle of working with brokers. Pebble’s technology enables startups to take on the risk of self-insurance previously only reserved for the world's Googles and Facebooks, while also saving the company money. That money can either show up as savings for the employer or can be used to offer additional benefits like fertility or mental health services that have all been out of reach for small employers until now. 

We first engaged with Pebble’s founder, Manoj Pinna, when he advised another international bank in our portfolio, Honest. Manoj was formerly the Chief Credit, Revenue, and Growth Officer responsible for building out NuBank’s GTM. His fintech experience in a highly regulated industry made him well-versed in navigating the complex world of health care. In every meeting with Manoj, he came back with more facts on how to build a better third-party administrator. Manoj quickly teamed up with Vinay Reddy to be his cofounder for Pebble. Vinay has extensive former experience at Google as a Senior Software engineer. 

Pebble Health recently announced that they’ve raised $17M total from us and Founders Co-Op. This capital has allowed them to build complex technology that matches small teams with customizable plans and allows them to invest in their go-to-market motion. We look forward to supporting their growth and leading their future rounds of fundraising!