At nvp capital, our investment strategy is built on deep market knowledge and a keen understanding of sectors poised for transformation. Our investment in Vitable Health reflects our long-standing interest in the healthcare and insurance markets and the opportunities we see to create value by addressing inefficiencies in the system. Vitable’s focus on providing affordable, accessible, high-quality care to hourly workers—an often overlooked yet critical segment—aligns with our conviction that innovative healthcare models can deliver both significant marketplace returns and better outcomes for users.
Joseph Kitonga, Vitable’s founder, was inspired by his own experience growing up and helping his parents bootstrap a home healthcare agency after immigrating from Kenya. One of the key challenges the family business faced was finding an affordable healthcare plan for their hourly employees. Due to too high premiums, many workers were forced to go uninsured, relying on emergency rooms and urgent care for basic needs – and trapped in a cycle of healthcare debt. Witnessing this, Kitonga sought to break that cycle by creating Vitable. A former Thiel Fellow, Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, and Y Combinator alum, Kitonga has built a company that directly tackles the healthcare challenges facing hourly workers in America.
We believe Direct Primary Care (DPC) will play a major role in servicing the growing population of underinsured Americans. The Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) has reduced the uninsured population by providing care to qualified individuals and pressuring employers to provide affordable healthcare plans to their employees. Despite the ACA, there is still a large number of employees who are underinsured. 43% of working-age adults have either a gap in coverage, don’t have access to affordable healthcare, or are simply uninsured. When employers reach a scale of over 50 employees, they are required to provide affordable care options to their employees. However, often times employers either do not qualify for group health plans given their size or receive quotes for premiums that are too expensive for their employees. These employers will thereby offer a Minimum Essential Coverage (MEC) plan – which exists purely to satisfy ACA compliance/requirements for employers at the lowest cost, and almost always fails to provide any meaningful healthcare coverage to employees. Unless meaningful regulatory changes are made, this problem is expected to persist.
Vitable is trying to fix this broken MEC cycle by offering new kinds of MEC and DPC plans that offer essential coverage like primary care, episodic care, mental health, prescriptions, and care navigation – providing access to affordable, high-quality care directly to employees and their dependents. For as little as $1 a day per employee, small businesses can offer a healthcare plan that includes in-home, onsite, and virtual primary care visits, mental health services, lab tests, and free prescriptions—without any out-of-pocket costs for workers. Vitable’s approach doesn’t just reduce the financial burden of healthcare; it brings care to workers where they are, whether in their homes or on their phones, via a seamless mobile app.
At nvp, we see healthcare innovation through the lens of accessibility, affordability, and scalability. This belief has guided not only our investment in Vitable, but also our recent backing of other transformative healthcare ventures like Juno, the first of its kind U.S. provider of child disability insurance, Pair Team, which supports Medicaid-based care, and Handspring, a Newark-based provider of pediatric behavioral health services. All of these companies share a common goal: addressing critical gaps in healthcare accessibility and affordability for underserved populations. The traditional insurance industry has been slow to adapt to the evolving needs of the modern workforce, especially for hourly employees who are critical to the country’s economy but often overlooked by the insurance market. We believe that alternative care models and insurance plans will provide much-needed healthcare for those left behind by conventional systems.
Vitable is already serving over 50,000 lives across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Illinois, Delaware, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia, Ohio, Texas and Florida – and is currently on the move. As it expands into new states and continues to grow its care navigation and primary care capabilities, we are confident that their impact will only deepen. Vitable’s ability to reach workers in small and medium-sized businesses, coupled with their plan to operate in over 40 states, positions them as a game-changer in the healthcare space.
Investing in Vitable Health aligns with nvp’s core belief that purpose-driven businesses are uniquely positioned to unlock significant market value while solving complex challenges. We are proud to back Joseph Kitonga and his team as they revolutionize healthcare for America’s workforce, creating both meaningful impact and long-term opportunity.
