For those having surgery, it takes about a month for the acute wound to heal but up to a year for complete recovery depending on the extent and type of wound. Hydration, giving your body the proper healing energy through diet, activity, rest, and proper wound care all contribute to the healing journey. Mend offers a complete digital platform combined with a line of nutrapharmaceuticals to promote healing and patient adherence. The wellness supplements are natural, independently-tested, non-GMO, gluten-free, and contain high bioavailability ingredients that are formulated for acute care. The company offers specialized products like ‘recover and recovery’ to help bones, wounds, and tissue heal faster, ‘joint replacement’ to prevent muscle atrophy after joint surgery, ‘cosmetic’ for aesthetic improvement after surgery, and ‘pre and post-surgery’ bundles. In addition, Mend also offers several preventative and maintenance options for things like muscle weakness and glucose control. Complementing the nutrapharma selection is ‘Upgraid’, the company’s virtual care platform which is billed as a digital healing platform for patients that have undergone surgery. Physicians and their offices are able to extend comprehensive care into patients’ home post-surgery through a continuous care team, nutrition programs, and patient progress tracking to increase engagement, promote adherence, eliminate barriers, and also provide continuity in care.
AlleyWatch caught up with Mend Cofounder and CEO Eziah Syed to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding, which brings the company’s total funding raised to $29.6M, and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
This is a $15 million Series A round and was led by S2G Ventures and joined a syndicate of VCs including iSelect Fund, Touchdown Ventures, Colorcon Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Keen Growth Capital, and others. We’re very proud of the strength of the syndicate and the mission alignment with our investors.
Tell us about the product or service that Mend offers.
MendTM is operating at the intersection of nutrapharma, food as medicine and digital behavioral health. We are leveraging these modalities to improve acute care, which is under considerable stress, with care staff shortages, burnout, margin compression, and other pressures. In short, we are using clinically proven solutions to extend and lift the level of care provided to patients in acute care settings such as surgery.
What inspired the start of Mend?
A number of illnesses with family members (e.g. mother with cancer, brother with life-threatening fall from Kaaterskill Falls) led our founding team to see gaps in acute care delivery. First of all, there was virtually no care outside of the walls of the hospital and secondly, we were missing an opportunity in acute care to position the patient for transformative change.
How is Mend different?
There is no one in the market that has brought together the totality of the solution that we offer, from clinically proven nutrapharma (a new class of natural medicine) to medically tailored meals, to digitally enabled care navigation by in-house clinical professionals such as nurses and dietitians. This is a paradigm change in medicine and mendTM is leading at the forefront.
What market does Mend target and how big is it?
We’re currently heavily focused on orthopedics but also have care pathways being designed in other indications such as oncology. In orthopedics alone, the market is very large, with roughly 7 million surgeries per year in the United States alone. 77% of all injury-related visits to healthcare are musculoskeletal injuries and we spend roughly $200 billion per year on this indication. We’re spending billions as a result of poor outcomes and readmissions and with the pressures in acute care, the quality is going to be at risk in the future.
What’s your business model?
We have a variety of different ways that we generate revenue from cash pay by the consumer, to hospitals purchasing our solutions, to payers covering our solutions. We are a hybrid company in consumer and B2B2C.
How are you preparing for a potential economic slowdown?
We’re going to be disciplined about managing cash and runway. We are fortunate that we have clients under contract and aren’t necessarily in need of new business, we are focused on execution. I’m going to ask our team to be efficient with our capital and create leverage wherever we can to ensure we maximize runway.
What was the funding process like?
Raising capital in this environment is extremely challenging but we’ve had success because of our market traction and unique business model. It always helps to have a strong lead investor and we’re very grateful to have an investor the caliber of S2G lead our round. Our investors did a ton of diligence on us and that inspires confidence both externally as well as internally. We know many very smart people have been under the hood of our business and we got a passing grade.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
Our capital raise was relatively smooth, however, given the environment we’re in, there was a level of attention to diligence that was heightened. We had to be patient with the process and produce the proof points whenever requested. Also, SVB happened in the middle of the raise, which slowed things down.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
Market traction and business model. When investors can call real clients and hear the impact your solution is having, that goes a long way. And our business model and defensibility is appealing to investors. We’re building something unique that will be difficult to replicate.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
It’s all about execution against contracts and scaling a client that is already ready to expand the use of our solution. We are going to burn the midnight oil and be maniacal about execution. If we do our job well in the next 6 months, we will be extremely well-positioned for 2024.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
It’s easy to allow bloat to happen and I’m constantly checking to ensure we don’t have any unnecessary spend on the books. Maintain your bootstrapping ethos and make each dollar go as far as possible. Get the proof points that investors are looking for – I know that’s easier said than done but you’ve made it this far, keep fighting and keep being resilient.
It’s easy to allow bloat to happen and I’m constantly checking to ensure we don’t have any unnecessary spend on the books. Maintain your bootstrapping ethos and make each dollar go as far as possible. Get the proof points that investors are looking for – I know that’s easier said than done but you’ve made it this far, keep fighting and keep being resilient.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
I’m really focused on execution and delivering against existing contracts and clients. If we do that well, the sky’s the limit for our firm. A few more pieces fall into place, and we’re poised for a very big year in 2024. I could see us taking more capital to turbocharge growth.
What’s your favorite summer destination in and around the city?
I recently purchased a place in the North Fork and absolutely love it there. If you haven’t visited, it’s worth checking out. Vineyards, beaches, organic farms, a bucolic vibe. It’s a really special place and if you go when there’s no traffic, you can get there in a little over an hour. I’d be happy to join you at a vineyard for some rosè.
