Sword Health is officially on a hot streak, and it’s only going to keep turning up the heat with $130 million in fresh funding and a new AI care specialist named Phoenix.
At a time when many startups are taking down rounds – at lower valuations – to secure more capital, Sword just did a mic drop round. It’s valuation spiked 50% to a cool $3 billion.
- Sword expects to be profitable before the end of the year, and said it didn’t need any financial help to get there.
- Besides the valuation refresh, Sword also wanted to give its employees some long-awaited liquidity. That’s why $100 million of the funding was secondary (shares from employees) and the other $30 million is reportedly locked away “generating nice interest.”
Founded in 2014, Sword pairs motion tracking technology with in-house clinicians to deliver virtual physical therapy programs for muscle and joint issues.
- Employers and health plans have flocked to digital musculoskeletal solutions to help members manage pain from home while avoiding opioids and costly surgeries, attracting competition from both well-funded giants (Hinge, Omada) and agile startups (Kaia, Vori).
Sword’s next chapter will focus on finishing the pre-IPO puzzle, and it just locked in one of the most important pieces: Phoenix, an AI care specialist that chats with patients during sessions to assess how they’re feeling and provide real-time feedback.
- As patients move through the exercises, Phoenix factors in medical history and verbal feedback to deliver optimal sessions within the human clinician’s pre-set parameters.
- It then summarizes the performance data to identify trends and surface actionable insights, making it easier for clinicians to optimize patient progress.
The icing on the cake? The Peterson Health Technology Institute highlighted Sword in an impeccably timed report on the clinical advantages of virtual MSK solutions as an effective alternative to in-person care – a glowing review compared to their harsh critique of digital diabetes programs.
The Takeaway
It sends a clear signal when a company raises nine figures just to flaunt its valuation and show its employees some love. Sword is in peak form as it gears up for an initial public offering, and it sounds like we could see a move as early as 2025 if the IPO market continues to rise from the ashes.
