Venture Capital

Stride Health Scoops Up $47 Million Series C

SAN FRANCISCO — Stride Health, a provider of portable benefits for independent workers, has raised a $47 million Series C round, bringing its total funding to $96 million. The round was led by King River Capital with participation from Mastercard and Allstate along with existing investors Venrock, NEA, Fidelity’s F-Prime Capital, and Moderne Ventures.

The funding will be used to expand on Stride’s work in building a modern portable benefits system for every American who lacks an employer safety net. Stride helps independent workers enroll in Affordable Care Act health insurance through a unique integration & partnership with healthcare.gov, manage & minimize taxes, and access an array of financial benefits and guidance, all in an easy-to-use app.

Stride partners with more than 120 companies including Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, Amazon, Grubhub, Etsy, Patreon, Keller Williams, Willis Towers Watson, Aon and Gopuff to bring portable benefits to their communities of independent contractors. In the first eight months of 2021, Stride’s membership climbed to 2.7M individuals while health enrollments increased 3.5X over 2020.

“Getting your own benefits can be stressful, confusing and expensive for independent workers,” said Noah Lang, Co-Founder and CEO of Stride. “An estimated 90 million Americans will work independently by 2028, and they all deserve to feel financially secure. That’s why we’ve built a modern, flexible benefits system for independent workers — because benefits shouldn’t be reserved for full-time traditional employees.”

The investment from Mastercard will expand the portable benefits partnership that the companies announced last year. Mastercard and Stride share a vision of creating a benefits system that addresses the needs of an evolving American workforce. Together, the companies will expand accessibility and affordability of critical insurance products like major medical, vision and dental for gig workers, independent contractors and part-time employees.

The investment from Allstate includes a partnership to expand the insurance benefits available on Stride and expand healthcare benefits access to Allstate customers.

The funding included new angel investors Bruce Perkins (former President of Healthcare Services at Humana), Chet Burrell (former CEO of CareFirst), Aneesh Chopra (the first Chief Technology Officer of the United States), Jonathan Bush (founder of AthenaHealth), and Kevin Nazemi (cofounder of Oscar Health Insurance).