Ro co-founder and CEO Zachariah Reitano mentioned whereas he’d “by no means say by no means” about doubtlessly taking the 7-year-old telehealth firm public, he thinks the advantages of being a non-public firm are rising.
Reitano dodged a number of questions from Axios reporter Dan Primack about whether or not or not the corporate has plans to IPO within the close to time period — or generally — at Axios’ BFD occasion on October 22.
“I’d give an unsatisfying reply, however the reality is that proper now, we’re solely targeted on delivering the best high quality product for our sufferers,” Reitano mentioned.
Ro has raised greater than $1 billion in enterprise capital from the likes of Normal Catalyst, Initialized Capital, and Torch Capital, amongst many others. Ro most not too long ago raised $150 million in a spherical led by ShawSpring Companions that valued the corporate at round $6.6 billion.
Reitano’s sentiment is probably going one shared by different late-stage startup founders as venture-backed corporations proceed to remain personal longer, based on PitchBook information. One other issue maintaining corporations personal is the rise of the secondaries market as an more and more frequent solution to give buyers and workers some liquidity — though nearly all of exercise surrounds a handful of corporations.
He additionally talked in regards to the firm’s massive “uncomfortable wager” on weight reduction medication that grew to become out there on the platform in 2023. Ro was based in 2017 by Rob Schutz, Saman Rahmanian, and Reitano as a telehealth firm targeted on erectile disfunction. The corporate expanded to extra males’s and ladies’s well being classes, together with hair development, fertility and pores and skin well being. However it has now change into nicely generally known as a supplier of a number of GLP-1s choices.
Reitano mentioned the corporate started growing this system to supply such medication in 2021 and moved a big share of its sources into the class on the time. It’s now one of many quickest rising sectors of its enterprise.
“Suppliers need sufferers to have it, and sufferers desperately need it. These issues have by no means occurred in any drug class earlier than, and so from our perspective, the prevalence and widespread utilization of GLP-1s is inevitable,” Reitano mentioned.
He added that the growth was pure on the time for the corporate as situations like weight problems influence lots of the different well being classes the corporate focuses on, together with fertility and sexual well being situations like erectile disfunction.
