Bob Watterson, founder and CEO of MyHealthMath (photo/Kevin Bennett)

MyHealthMath, a Portland-based company with the mission to simplify the process of purchasing health insurance, has raised $3.5 million to help fund its product roadmap.

The company’s product guides people through their health-insurance options and helps make more informed decisions about which plan works best for them and their family. The company partners with health insurers and businesses to make the tool available to those end users. Maine Startups Insider selected MyHealthMath as a 2019 Maine Startup to Watch.

However, the company’s product has gone through significant changes over the last few years. In 2019, the company offered a primarily phone-based solution to help employees pick the right healthcare plan. Employees considering what health insurance plan to select would get on the phone, share personal and healthcare-related information. Then MyHealthMath would spit out a report, a static PDF, and email it to the employee that laid out the different plans and anticipated costs.

Today the product, called Decision Doc, is a web interface that guides employees through the process, prompting them to enter their info and receive dynamic reports rather than static PDFs. Think of it like the TurboTax for picking a health insurance plan, though support via phone interactions are still an option given how personalized peoples’ healthcare needs are.

The move to a web application has allowed the company to scale and reach more customers. MyHealthMath’s sales have grown between 25% to 40% a year over the last few years, according to CEO Bob Watterson.

“The last couple years have been really exciting for MyHealthMath as we’ve moved from a more regional market to reaching consumers across the country,” Watterson tells Maine Startups Insider. “What’s been most exciting about that growth is that we’ve managed to retain our deeply personalized approach—from individual data analysis to the personal support people need. When it comes to health care, everyone is different, and that’s why we’ve prioritized the personal in every product update and every partner conversation. It’s this personalized approach that differentiates us from any other ‘decision support’ platform, and it’s what’s propelled our recent growth.”

The company began partnering with insurance carriers—its first partner was Harvard Pilgrim Health Care—but its partners have expanded to any organization that benefits from consumers making smarter decisions around healthcare, whether that’s benefit insurance platforms, HSA providers, etc.

Jennus Innovation, a company that’s part incubator part advisory firm, led the round, raising the majority of $3.5 million from its network of investors.

Chris Jenny, Jennus’ managing director, told MSI that his firm looks for three fundamental factors when deciding to invest in a company: 1) A market where a significant amount of economic value is being created through innovation, 2) a company with a distinctive competitive advantage within that space, and 3) an outstanding CEO and management team to lead the effort.

“In MyHealthMath, we found all three,” Jenny said. “We believe that the underlying market will be both large and profitable for MHM, we very much like what they are building through their proprietary product approach and their channel distribution strategy and we believe strongly in Bob and the team he has put together. A fantastic combination.”

The company’s product roadmap includes adding support for ancillary insurance products like dental, vision, life, and long- and short-term disability; as well as an analytics system for employers that helps them predict what plans employees are going to choose and, therefore better anticipate costs.

Prior to this latest round, MyHealthMath had raised $3.75 million, including $750,000 of debt financing. It currently employees 17 people.