- XP Health — an artificial intelligence-powered vision benefits platform covering employees and their families — recently announced it has raised a total of $5 million in a seed round of funding. These are the details.
XP Health — an artificial intelligence-powered vision benefits platform covering employees and their families — recently announced it has raised a total of $5 million in a seed round of funding led by Valor Capital Group. Valor Capital is backing XP Health to support the company’s growth plans — which include further developing its AI technology and scaling its R&D and engineering teams. And additional investors as part of the XP Health seed round included Semper Virens, Village Global, J-Angels, Stanford StartX, and renowned angel investor Jeff Epstein (former CFO at Oracle).
XP Health is known for bringing the world’s only AI-powered vision benefits directly to employees and their family members, making it easier and more affordable for all employees to get frames from the world’s leading designers, and high-quality lenses from the convenience of their homes or offices.
By using AI and deep learning, XP Health is able to help companies save their employees up to 90% in eyewear costs per year. And XP Health offers a solution that increases a company’s existing vision benefits coverage by an average of 10x. Early XP Health customers include Chegg, Zenefits, and Sequoia Consulting Group.
XP Health provides employees with: 1.) 20/20 vision: 40% of the workforce is covered for eyewear 2.) UV Protection: recommended by doctors to avoid macular degeneration and cataracts 3.) Blue-Light Protection: recommended by doctors to improve sleep and potential harm to the retina 4.) Durable Lens: Lens made of polycarbonate not covered and 5.) Anti-Reflective Coating: Recommended by doctors to reduce eye-strain.
XP Health provides personal stylists who are dedicated to the employer, the ability to try-on up to 6 pairs of frames, from the world’s leading designers like Tom Ford, Ray-Ban, Armani, Gucci, and Coach with a prepaid return label included. And the company’s proprietary deep learning model uses facial recognition technology that recommends the best frames based on facial dimensions with 98% accuracy.
XP Health was founded by Antonio Moraes and James Wong. Both Moraes and Wong met at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where they discovered a common passion for the vision industry and recognized a better experience for vision benefits that will aid both employers and employees with the help of AI and deep learning technology.
Along with the funding announcement, XP Health also revealed its list of world-class advisors in vision, benefits, and technology, including:
1.) Ellen Meza, Director, Global Benefits & Mobility, DocuSign
2.) Yogi Panjabi, former VP, People Technology and Analytics, Palo Alto Networks
3.) Robert Chang, M.D., Associate Professor of Ophthalmology
4.) Sharon Lee O.D. U.C. Berkeley School of Optometry alumni
5.) Dr. Robson Capasso, Associate Professor of Otolaryngology, and Associate Dean Stanford School of Medicine
6.) Steve Schramm, co-founder Orative (acquired by Oracle)
7.) Doug Solomon, Chief Legal Officer, RMS, and former SVP, General Counsel at NetSuite
8.) David Glick, CTO at Flexe, and a former VP of Operations and Fulfilment Technologies at Amazon
KEY QUOTES:
“Our mission at XP Health is to make vision benefits more affordable for both employers and employees, whether you have or don’t have vision insurance, and whether you wear or don’t wear prescription glasses. By creating an industry-leading technology platform based on AI and deep learning, we are providing the highest quality vision care in the most affordable way to everyone.”
— Antonio Moraes, Co-Founder & CEO, XP Health.
“We are thrilled to support XP Health and its growth to the entire US territory. Benefits are one of the largest markets in the world but employees still spend so much out of pocket. In the vision space alone, around $17 billion are wasted in premiums that are not used. XP Health has the opportunity to bring vision benefits down for both employees and employers.”
— Scott Sobel, Founding Partner at Valor Capital Group
“At Sequoia, we work with companies looking for the best benefits out there, using technology to unlock their employees’ full potential. We’re proud to have partnered with XP Health to provide the best-in-class vision benefit to our own employees and many of our clients.”
— Robby Peters, VP of Business Development at Sequoia Consulting Group
“With COVID-19, digital eye strain became one of the many problems for distributed workforces, with employees spending over 8 hours per day in front of screens. This equates to potential harm to workers’ health and wellbeing as well as productivity loss. Traditional vision plans are not innovating at the speed that is needed. XP Health has a powerful solution that gives employees access to high-quality, doctor recommended glasses at reduced out of pocket costs from today’s standard coverage. I believe XP Health will become the new gold standard for vision benefits.”
— Ellen Meza, Director, Global Benefits & Mobility at Docusign and XP Health advisor
