Mahmee addresses disparities in maternal healthcare, significantly reducing premature births and Cesarean sections
LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#digitalhealth—Mahmee, a maternal healthcare startup, today announced the closing of a $9.2 million Series A round led by the Growth Equity Business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management. The round also features participation from existing investors including Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, Muse Capital, Backstage Capital, The Helm, and Pipeline Angels. As part of the round, Anna Mason, Managing Partner at Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, will join Mahmee’s board of directors. New investors include Episcopal Health Foundation of Texas, Third Culture Capital, Black Pearl Investment Group, She Raises Capital, and Lawrence Platt, MD, pioneering board certified obstetrician-gynecologist and maternal-fetal medicine specialist and member of Mahmee’s clinical advisory committee.
Since launching in 2016, Mahmee has offered both a place to manage maternity care and a national network of community-based birth professionals, including its own in-house nurses and care coordinators. Mahmee’s subscription for live support 7 days a week gives expectant mothers an experience differentiated from any other maternity app: a team of seasoned nurses and care coordinators to proactively screen and monitor health needs, make referrals to culturally competent professionals, and assist with navigating social services.
Mahmee has existing partnerships with municipal health departments, hospitals, and insurance companies including the D.C. Department of Health and Blue Shield of California, who make Mahmee’s subscription-based service available at no cost to historically Black and underserved communities.
This investment comes at a critical time for expectant mothers across the country. The United States is the most expensive place to give birth, yet ranks 50th in the world in maternal mortality. Black and Indigenous women are 2-4 times more likely to die during or after childbirth. Research shows that one way to save more lives is by increasing the amount of clinical care coordination and community-based support that a mother receives during the most critical risk period: the months before and after labor.
“The Mahmee Network proves that community-based care delivery models have the greatest chance of ensuring access to comprehensive support for new and expecting parents,” said Mahmee’s cofounder and CEO, Melissa Hanna, JD, MBA. “Black and Indigenous birthing individuals are represented in Mahmee’s population at three times the rate of the U.S. birth census and yet Mahmee’s birth outcomes are much better than the national average, which demonstrates that the country’s maternal healthcare disparities are solvable. This milestone investment allows us to expand our team and work with even more organizations to close gaps in care for mothers and babies.”
Mahmee has served over 15,000 pregnant and birthing individuals and performed thousands of physician escalations and life-saving interventions for users experiencing issues like severe hypertension, infection, placental bleeding, and severe postpartum depression.
Patients with Mahmee are 10% less likely to have a C-section, and 50% less likely to deliver prematurely.
Hanna, one of the 93 Black Women in the country to have raised millions of dollars in funding, also participated in the 2021 Launch With GS Entrepreneur Cohort and has now received early-stage investment from the Growth Equity Business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management. The investment is also part of Goldman Sachs’ One Million Black Women initiative, a $10 billion commitment to narrow opportunity gaps for Black women over the next decade through several pillars including, healthcare, access to capital and education.
“We are thrilled to continue on the Mahmee journey through this investment that lies squarely at the intersection of our Launch With GS and One Million Black Women initiatives,” said Suzanne Gauron, Global Head of Launch With GS. “Disparities in accessing high-quality maternal and perinatal care contribute to poor health outcomes in underserved communities and substantial costs for the broader healthcare system. With a technology-first approach, a robust network of providers, and strong business model alignment with patient needs, we believe Mahmee is well positioned to improve the lives of mothers and babies by narrowing critical opportunity gaps in care and outcomes.”
“We first invested in Mahmee in 2019 because they were building a new model of care for expectant mothers,” said Anna Mason, Managing Partner at Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund. “Solutions like Mahmee are critically important to provide women across the country with access to trusted resources and support. Rise of the Rest is proud to back Mahmee as it continues to deliver better outcomes for mothers and their babies.”
The funding will be used to expand Mahmee’s team, community-based provider network, and roster of payor and health system partners.
About Mahmee
Mahmee is an integrated care delivery platform for maternal and infant health that connects patients, independent health professionals, and enterprise healthcare organizations to increase access to comprehensive care prenatal and postpartum care. Mahmee provides expectant mothers with an experience differentiated from any other maternity app by offering live support 7 days a week and unlimited expert-led support groups and classes. Through a dedicated team of seasoned nurses and care coordinators, we proactively screen for health concerns, make referrals to culturally competent professionals, and assist with navigating social services. The Mahmee Network features more than 750 practices and community-based organizations across the country, putting thousands of doulas, lactation consultants, midwives, therapists, and nutritionists at your fingertips. Together, we seek to reduce the risk of bias and errors in your care with a unified health record for mom and baby so that critical data is no longer fragmented. Mahmee is backed by Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, Muse Capital, Backstage Capital, MaC Venture Capital, Episcopal Health Foundation of Texas, Serena Williams, Mark Cuban, and others. Follow our journey on Twitter and LinkedIn.
About One Million Black Women
In partnership with Black-women-led organizations, financial institutions and other partners, Goldman Sachs has committed $10 billion in direct investment capital and $100 million in philanthropic capital over the next decade to address the dual disproportionate gender and racial biases that Black women have faced for generations, which have only been exacerbated by the pandemic. The initiative, One Million Black Women, is named for and guided by the goal of impacting the lives of at least one million Black women by 2030. Goldman Sachs research has shown that sustained investments in Black women across the core pillars of housing, healthcare, access to capital, education, job creation and workforce advancement, digital connectivity and financial health will catalyze economic growth, making for not only a fairer, but also a richer society.
About Goldman Sachs Asset Management Growth Equity
Bringing together traditional and alternative investments, Goldman Sachs Asset Management provides clients around the world with a dedicated partnership and focus on long-term performance. As the primary investing area within Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), we deliver investment and advisory services for the world’s leading institutions, financial advisors and individuals, drawing from our deeply connected global network and tailored expert insights, across every region and market—overseeing more than $2 trillion in assets under supervision worldwide as of March 31, 2022. Driven by a passion for our clients’ performance, we seek to build long-term relationships based on conviction, sustainable outcomes, and shared success over time. Goldman Sachs Asset Management invests in the full spectrum of alternatives, including private equity, growth equity, private credit, real estate and infrastructure. Since 2003 the Growth Equity business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management comprising more than 75 individuals has invested over $13 billion in companies led by visionary founders and CEOs. We focus exclusively on investments in growth stage and technology-driven companies spanning multiple industries, including enterprise technology, financial technology, consumer and healthcare. Follow us on LinkedIn.
Contacts
Melissa Hanna
Mahmee
melissa@mahmee.com
