Why We Invested in Prosper

The convergence of preventative health, primary care, and AI is the healthcare bet of the decade. Prosper is building the connective tissue.

Fluent has invested in Prosper’s $16M seed round, alongside lead investor FUSE and a syndicate that includes Aurum Partners, Better.vc, Cal Innovation Fund, Latitude Capital, Knoll Ventures, and Western Technology Investment. This is a note on why. Prosper is also one of the six health models we laid out in “What we are backing in health”, where AI primary care, in the US with Prosper and in Poland with Jutro Medical, sits alongside our bets internationally.

The founders

We invest in proven founders building proven models. In many ways Prosper is a great example. Ryan McQuaid and Dr. James Wantuck previously founded PlushCare, which scaled virtual primary care past a million patient visits a year and ultimately sold it to Accolade in 2021 for $450 million. They know how to build a clinical organization, how to earn patient trust at scale, and, critically, where the last model hit its ceiling.

Enter AI.

Our investment in Prosper is supporting founders on their second at-bat in the same category, armed with experience and a new tech platform.

The problem

American primary care is broken in a specific and expensive way. It is rationed by time and access. The typical patient waits weeks for an appointment, then gets a rushed visit with a physician who is seeing them for the first time, has no memory of their history, and is racing a schedule built around billing codes rather than health.

Relationship continuity, arguably the most valuable thing a primary care relationship can offer, is structurally challenging. Patients feel it acutely in their day-to-day care. But so do doctors, who did not train for a decade to become data-entry clerks fighting the clock. One growing trend, for those that can afford it, is concierge medicine. The catch: it typically requires a retainer of thousands of dollars a year, and $10,000 or more at the top end.

Prosper is building concierge primary care, but democratized. For a flat $69 a month, a member gets a dedicated physician, trained at a top-50 U.S. medical school with an average of ten years of experience, a Care Concierge team supporting them, and coverage that stays in-network with major insurance plans. Where concierge medicine has historically been a luxury good, priced for the wealthy few, Prosper is taking the concierge experience, the dedicated doctor, the continuity, the responsiveness, and pricing it for the many.

The role of AI

AI is the catalyst. To me, the interesting part is what Prosper does not use it for. Prosper is not trying to replace the physician with a chatbot. Yes, AI can help with diagnosis. But the primary use of AI is to give the physician time to offer patient continuity and greater investment in the relationship. The platform aggregates a patient’s data, maintains memory across every interaction, and coordinates the administrative and logistical load that currently consumes a doctor’s day.

For us, as AI’s capabilities continue to scale, trust becomes the core asset, in health like in many other industries. We are looking for ways for AI to deepen the human relationship rather than substituting it.

The thesis: preventative health meets primary care

AI primary care in the US is not a sole bet for us. We were also investors in Jutro Medical, AI-enabled primary care in Poland.

We are looking at models that merge primary care with prevention. For most of modern medicine these have been separate worlds: prevention was for diagnostics and wellness, and disconnected from the clinician, whereas primary care was reactive and episodic, triggered when there was something wrong. We think the future will merge these two.

In the US, Function has shown that people will pay out of pocket, at scale, to understand their own biomarkers, turning diagnostics from an occasional event into an ongoing practice. Hims & Hers has shown that a consumer-grade front door can reach millions of people the traditional system underserved. Each of these companies started at one end of the spectrum, preventative data or consumer access, and is being pulled toward the other end: real, ongoing primary care.

In Southeast Asia we are investors in &you, the Manila-based company building the trusted direct-to-consumer health platform for the region, the Hims and Function model adapted to its market. And we are early days on our own incubation in the category.

Prosper combines prevention and primary care, at the convergence of many of these trends.

Why this fits Fluent

Fluent is a global early-stage fund. We back proven founders replicating proven models into new geographies or contexts. Health is one of our core verticals.

Congratulations to Ryan, James, and the entire Prosper team. We are proud to be investors, and we are excited for what comes next.