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Hinge IPO, Dead Zones, and Ex-Cerebral CEO’s New Startup
March 13, 2025
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Together with
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“Technology alone is not going to transform health care. How people use technology is going to transform health care.”
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Hinge Health CEO Daniel Perez
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When the digital health market needed a hero, Hinge Health answered the call.
Hinge officially filed for its IPO, braving the biggest stock market downturn in recent memory to pull the tech-enabled services category out of a years-long slump.
- It’s a bold move, but Hinge has the business to back it up. Using a combination of virtual care and AI, Hinge delivers MSK treatment programs with comparable outcomes to traditional physical therapy at a fraction of the cost.
- Hinge has apparently been able to automate 95% of MSK care delivery, saving its clients (primarily employers and payors) an estimated $2,387 per member per year.
Diving into the S-1, Hinge grew its revenue by 33% to $390M in 2024. It also managed to cut its net loss from $108M down to just $12M, generating 77% gross margins in the process.
- Hinge reported 532k members and ~200M contracted lives across 2,250 clients, and counts nearly half of the Fortune 500 as clients.
- Great stats all around, but a nice soundbite from the S-1 was that “current contracted lives only represent 5% of our total addressable market,” and Hinge is now on the hunt for more growth through commercial plans and Medicare Advantage.
Even with the impressive metrics, Hinge’s last private valuation came in at a rich $6.2B at the height of the pandemic, meaning that it’ll need around a 15X revenue multiple just to match it.
- It’s not out of the question, but Hims & Hers has been one of the lone bright spots for public digital health companies, and it’s trading at just 5X revenue.
The entire tech-enabled services market feels like it hinges on this IPO, at least if you’ve been following this week’s reaction to the S-1.
- Hinge is going to be the first health tech startup to go public since Waystar last June, and VCs have been hesitant to invest in the category given the lack of major exits.
- If Hinge’s debut goes well, it would restore some much-needed confidence in the market, and potentially even kick off a revival in the dormant IPO landscape.
The Takeaway
Hinge is a true disrupter, with an outcomes-driven alternative to traditional physical therapy and a ton of momentum in one of healthcare’s largest markets. We’ll definitely be rooting for them when they ring the bell.
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- Ex-Cerebral CEO’s New Startup: Former Cerebral CEO David Mou is launching a new mental health startup called AdvocateMH, which will use licensed clinicians to triage users to appropriate services for their needs (meditation apps, virtual therapy providers, in-person treatments). AdvocateMH is structured as a public benefit corporation because Mou believes the “growth-at-all-costs” mindset has hindered mental health startups, nevermind that Cerebral recently settled allegations for dubious prescribing practices meant to drive quick revenue.
- Doc Fix Nixed: U.S. healthcare providers may have to wait longer for a fix to a 2.8% cut in Medicare reimbursement that went to effect in January. Language that would have implemented a “doc fix” was not included in budget legislation passed by the House of Representatives this week, raising the ire of physician groups already stung by failure of a fix late last year. Republican representatives, however, say they expect to work a fix into the reconciliation package by the time it’s finished.
- NextGen AI Upgrades: NextGen Healthcare rolled out several AI enhancements to its NextGen Mobile platform as part of its overarching strategy of “the new UI is no UI.” The updates include a new “patient story” feature that automatically generates patient summaries, an integrated medications workflow with AI-generated suggestions based on the provider’s note, and charge capture integration that allows providers to add office visit and procedure codes while completing encounters.
- Top Patient Safety Concerns: ECRI put out its annual list of the top 10 patient safety concerns, warning that AI could begin leading to more misdiagnoses if providers don’t start taking action to mitigate the risk. Insufficient governance of AI ranked second on this year’s list, with the top stop belonging to “risks of dismissing patient, family and caregiver concerns.” The full list includes some solid resources and guidelines for addressing each of the concerns.
- Junction Lands $18M: Care infrastructure startup Junction – formerly known as Vital – landed $18M in Series A funding to make patient data more accessible and actionable across lab testing and device integrations. The Junction platform provides seamless lab ordering across all 50 states (results from 10+ labs via in-person or at-home testing), and leverages integrations with over 500 wearables / medical devices to create a longitudinal view of patient health.
- Teladoc Connected Care Partnerships: Teladoc is expanding its connected care network with partnerships in new categories including digestive health (Oshi, Cylinder), specialty care centers of excellence (Carrum), and family planning (Carrot Fertility). The fresh cohort builds on existing partnerships with Hinge and Sword in MSK care, with new integrations allowing Teladoc providers to view members’ eligibility and seamlessly refer them to appropriate programs.
- OpenAI Research Consortium: OpenAI is investing $50M in a new academic research consortium called NextGenAI, which comprises 15 partner universities including Harvard, Oxford, and MIT. NextGenAI will advance AI research and education across multiple industries, but specifically mentions healthcare-related goals like accelerating rare disease diagnosis and improving AI alignment with human values in medical decision-making.
- Hims Exits Dermatology: It sounds like things are getting bumpy for Hims & Hers’ dermatology business. The DTC telehealth company decided to shut down its Apostrophe personalized acne treatment service after acquiring it back in 2021, apparently to “simplify its dermatology products and operations into one seamless experience.” Hims will continue offering products for other skin conditions like wrinkles and fine lines.
- Healthcare Dead Zones: Millions of Americans live in places without both doctors offices and telehealth access, according to new research from KFF. The report highlights some pretty bleak situations unfolding at several counties in Alabama, reaching the unsurprising conclusion that internet and care gaps are “hitting areas of extreme poverty and high social vulnerability,” increasing the prevalence of chronic disease and dramatically reducing life expectancy.
- HIMSS Doubles Down on Vegas for 2026: HIMSS plans to hold the 2026 edition of its annual meeting in Las Vegas, one of the first times in recent memory it has held back-to-back conferences in the same city. HIMSS is so large it can usually only be held in one of the three U.S. cities with adequate conference space (Las Vegas, Orlando, and Chicago). HIMSS reported total attendance of over 28k people at HIMSS 2025, down slightly from 30k at HIMSS 2024 in Orlando.
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