Socially Determined closed a $26M Series B

DC-based digital analytics firm Socially Determined is kicking off summer with a $26 million Series B, the company announced today.

The round was led by Questa Capital with additional participation from LRVHealth, OSF Healthcare, Ziegler, Link-Age Funds and HealthWorx (the investment arm of CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield).

Socially Determined uses data to help understand the health of communities and the “social risk” that many of those in the US experience every day. Its analytics product primarily works with and supports health systems and plans, and CEO and cofounder Trenor Williams told Technical.ly that he sees a huge opportunity to expand that footprint. But that does mean more investment in its data and personnel, which made the Series B important.

“We’re on a journey as a company, it’s not static,” Williams said. “We didn’t create our risk scores or risk intelligence and then just stop, which means we have to continually evaluate net new data sources, curate them and be able to pull them in.”

A huge portion of the funding will support hiring, Williams said, as the company plans to add about 20 to 25 people over the next six months — particularly among its data science team in Blacksburg, Virginia. It will be hiring for several different roles, with an emphasis on data engineering analysts and data scientists.

The raise, according to Williams, is proof that the company and its tech are headed in the right direction.

“It’s real validation that the work we do — and the social risk intelligence that we provide — is necessary and valuable to our healthcare partners and, specifically, is a validation of our company,” Williams said.

The funding news rounds out strong money moves from Socially Determined over the past few years. In 2019, the company raised $7.3 million in a Series A before adding another few million to close the round at $11.1 million. In 2021, it also launched a brand-new tool that measured digital equity and its impact on the surrounding community (which also earned it a cool Technical.ly awards nom from us).

In addition to hiring, Williams said the company will continue to invest in its data resources and add new partners, although it’s hoping to stay in the US for the time being. A lot of the company’s growth will be in expanding its work with health insurance and life science companies to better understand the country and the health of the communities within, especially in the wake of developments like the overturn of Roe v. Wade.

“Our ability to help understand the barriers that people have to be able to access healthcare is incredibly important,” Williams said. “So we will continue to partner with our existing health systems and health plans around that. We will continue to look for additional partners and to be able to, frankly, shine a light on where those inequities and barriers exist, and do everything that we can to try to reduce and eliminate them. “