SimpliFed, a telehealth platform dedicated to democratizing access to baby feeding services, has closed a $6M seed round, led by Morningside Ventures and The Venture Collective. Other participants int he round include NY Ventures, Elizabeth Street Ventures, Waterline Ventures, and 3CC. The funds will be used to expand the virtual baby feeding platform, to implement and scale its unique service offering in partnership with commercial, Medicaid, Marketplace, and TRICARE health plans across the United States.
SimpliFed was founded by CEO Andrea Ippolito after experiencing first-hand how difficult infant feeding was, and realizing how much judgment and misinformation exists around baby nutrition. From this experience, she and her team were driven to redesign the care pathway to improve access to high quality care, reduce costs, and improve maternal and baby health outcomes. The SimpliFed team includes a network of lactation consultants, nurses, nurse practitioners, doulas, social workers, and working parents who have a range of breastfeeding-specific training and credentials. This team democratizes access to baby feeding services that are covered under the Affordable Care Act, seeks to shift practice and narratives by providing expanded resources for judgment-free support while embedding baby feeding into both community-based and in-person clinical care delivery, and reaches parents when and where they need help, on their own terms.
Founder Andrea Ippolio shares: “SimpliFed provides inclusive support no matter how parents feed their babies. We are excited to accelerate our traction with our partners and serve families across the United States. This round was raised while I both breastfed and formula-fed my second daughter. There is so much joy in building a family, but feeding your baby is not always easy. That is exactly why SimpliFed is on a mission to help provide equitable access to the services families need to feel secure about their nutrition choices.”
Morningside Ventures Stephen Bruso adds: “Virtual-first platforms and health data analytics hold the potential to transform care delivery, but many low-income Americans are at risk of being left behind in the digital healthcare revolution. SimpliFed is focused on providing equitable access to feeding and lactation services to families nationwide, and we are excited to partner with the company in this meaningful endeavor.”
In its pre-seed round, the company secured two national contracts with TRICARE and two regional Medicaid contracts, obtained its Medicaid number in several states, grew to serve more than 20 employers through a partnership with Milk Stork, and partnered with health care systems, clinicians, and community-based organizations.
Ippolito is a mom of two and a biomedical engineer. Prior to SimpliFed, she was a co-founder of Smart Scheduling, acquired by athenahealth in 2016, MIT Hacking Medicine Co-director, a US Department of Veterans Affairs Senior Advisor for Electronic Health Record Modernization and Innovators Network Director, and a Presidential Innovation Fellow based out of White House Office of Science and Technology. She holds degrees from Cornell and MIT. She has built a women-led and run organization, with a commitment to bringing more diversity, scale, and representation to the fields of family healthcare, baby feeding, and health tech.
