GoWell Benefits aims to take the stress out of employee health plans
Founded by: Holly Adams
Year founded: 2021
Headquarters: Philadelphia, PA
Sector: Insurance
Funding and valuation: $2.83 million, according to PitchBook
Key ecosystem partners: Ben Franklin Technology Partners, Naples Technology Ventures, Chloe Capital
When Holly Adams worked as a benefits consultant helping businesses navigate health insurance enrollment, she knew there had to be a better way.
For more than a decade, she watched as employers and employees struggled with complicated enrollment processes, long questionnaires and tech that wasn't as accessible as she knew it could be.
'I tried different things, even sending iPads to stores to see if they made it easier, but it just was a little bit too complicated for the average consumer,' Adams told Technical.ly.
She took what she'd learned and came up with GoWell Benefits, a platform launched in 2021 that simplifies the enrollment process for employers with an easy and accessible way to insure employees.
'We work with brokers and we work with employers, insurance carriers, and employees,' Adams said. 'All those entities touch our system to make insurance more transparent and a little bit easier to understand.'
From early adoption to tech startup
Adams started her career at the end of the 1990s, when tech was just starting to enter the workplace. Working for GlaxoSmithKline, she helped the company get its compliance data warehouse set up. Her job back then was to meet with developers to make sure that prescription data could be analyzed.
While she would shift away from a technical job when she went into benefits consulting, that experience would come in handy when she decided to create GoWell.
'I had the opportunity to work with programmers and work towards realizing a dream,' Adams said, 'then I took that experience and used it to build my own dream.'
The biggest hurdle, she said, is getting the enrollment process started. An employee who feels overwhelmed by enrolling before it even starts isn't going to be focused on what matters, like which deductibles meet their needs, which prescriptions are covered, co-pays and whether their chosen doctors are covered.
'Until you get that piece in, it's hard to try to make insurance more transparent, because people are trying to figure out how to do it, as opposed to what they should be focusing on, which is what they're getting,' she said.
It's a holistic approach, she said, that meets employees where they are, engaging them and ultimately making it easier for the employer to track benefits.
One of the 2% of VC-funded ventures
Today, GoWell has about 10,000 users on its platform, a staff of 10 employees and has reached profitability.
In the beginning, Adams used her own funds to support the startup, but funding eventually started coming in, including from its lead investors Ben Franklin Technology Partners and Naples Technology Ventures, as well as Chloe Capital, a VC firm that focuses on investing in women.
'They've been very supportive in helping us build out the technology and make it as a startup,' Adams said. 'We're really lucky because we're one of 2% of women [owned startups] that are funded.'
So far GoWell has raised $2.85 million, according to Pitchbook.
There are more funding rounds to come for GoWell, she said, with plans to use future investments to add more components to the platform, including AI.
'That's what we're developing now,' Adams said. 'Making our software more intuitive.'
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