Healthcare Co-op Savvy Snags Venture Funding From Indie.Vc – TechCrunch

Summary

Savvy,  a healthcare cooperative, has just raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Indie.vc. It’s the first platform cooperative to receive venture capital funding.

Established as a cooperative that shares profits with its users, Savvy connects patients with healthcare companies and other providers looking to better serve people through products and services. Patients can take paid gigs that include tasks like interviews, focus groups and user testing.

Savvy is set up as a multi-stakeholder cooperative. Those stakeholders are divided into four classes: patients, Savvy employees, founders and investors. Up until now, Savvy has been entirely bootstrapped and sustained by its revenue, Savvy CEO Jen Horonjeff told TechCrunch via email.

Cooperatives can oftentimes face trouble raising venture funding. That’s because their business models don’t generally align with the incentives of traditional venture capitalists, Horonjeff previously told me.