Beyond drugs and doctors: How Soda Health is improving patient lives, holistically

Why Lightspeed is backing Soda Health’s infrastructure solution to reduce healthcare waste

Robby Knight knows firsthand how dehumanizing it can be to seek assistance for food, housing, or transportation — the basic needs alongside healthcare that impact both quality of life and overall mortality.

These fundamental human needs, called social determinants of health, weren’t stable in Robby’s childhood. After his family fled from war-torn Lebanon, he watched his mother struggle to support three kids while putting herself through nursing school — even selling her plasma to make ends meet — making Robby determined to become a social worker to lift others out of their own struggles.

When he became a social worker, Robby realized the programs built to help people were actually disconnected, inefficient and difficult to navigate. He began envisioning a better way for disenfranchised populations to access the financial assistance they so desperately need, especially as these safety net programs continued to be a deeply personal issue for him. Despite moving into a successful career in healthcare innovation at Walmart, Robby still faced numerous roadblocks helping his father access basic necessities, including housing and food assistance.

Robby and I met over five years ago and have long talked about entrepreneurial opportunities to improve healthcare. When he left Walmart in 2021, we knew the time was right to create something special and started iterating on a range of concepts. Because of the challenges Robby’s parents faced and his deep passion to create the accessible solution they deserved, Robby and I knew we wanted to build a company that could address health inequities.

We realized Medicare Advantage’s $80 billion investment in supplemental benefits provided the perfect starting point, as funding was already earmarked to address these inequities and the existing solutions were powered by decades-old infrastructure that wasn’t designed for the purpose it now serves.

Thus, Soda Health was born.

Robby co-founded Soda Health to bridge the gap between healthcare funding and those in need. For the company to achieve its multidisciplinary mission, he assembled a team of best-in-class experts drawn from the retail, healthcare, and technology sectors. Today, I am excited to announce the company’s $25 million Series A, which Lightspeed funded along with Define Ventures and Qiming Venture Partners USA.

Making sure no money is left on the table — and no patient is left behind

It’s estimated that over $750 billion is wasted annually in the healthcare industry. Lightspeed is always looking for investment opportunities that efficiently reduce this waste, while also benefiting the most important player in the industry: patients. I was drawn to how Soda Health is taking a compassionate, yet quantitatively rigorous approach to streamlining healthcare financial services for payers, patients, and retailers that have, until now, been a tangled mess of disparate programs and benefits.

Figuring out how to provide individuals with the financial support to improve their social determinants of health is an infrastructure problem. Myriad government-funded programs allot billions every year to provide goods and services alongside healthcare, including food and housing. The sticking point is ensuring people in need can access these programs.

Soda Health is building the solution: a platform that connects individuals to personalized benefits available through their health plans and other sources, and with retailers and other organizations where they can use those benefits.

The individualized approach is vital. No two people’s health needs are alike, and those needs are ever-changing. Soda Health ensures each person is matched with the right benefits and is able to adapt as their needs and health status changes.

How Soda Health is overhauling the system

To start with, Soda Health is working with Medicare Advantage and Medicaid plans to customize benefits for their members.

First, the company’s platform is structured so individuals are notified when they might qualify for a benefit, rather than needing to do the research and application legwork themselves.

Then, Soda Health makes it as simple as swiping a single card to access financial assistance. The company has developed a customizable debit card that can be loaded with any type of benefit for which an individual qualifies.

We at Lightspeed are looking forward to seeing Soda Health expand their essential service beyond Medicare and Medicaid to other partners, so more people can access these vital benefits, and to have Soda Health create larger networks where patients can utilize these benefits.