Verily, an Alphabet-owned life sciences company, announced on Friday that it has raised $1 billion in funding for the expansion of its data-driven, individualized healthcare offerings.
According to the company’s release, Alphabet took the lead in the financing.
Additionally, Verily disclosed changes to its management staff that would take place in January 2023. Andy Conrad, the company’s founder, will serve as executive chairman of the Verily board. The company’s president, Stephen Gillett, will be elevated to CEO. Gillett first worked at Verily as a cybersecurity project manager and operational advisor. He was CEO and co-founder of Chronicle, an Alphabet cybersecurity business that is now a part of Google Cloud, at the time.
By the end of the month, Deepak Ahuja will step down as CFO. Ahuja was appointed as the first chief financial and business officer of drone delivery and logistics startup Zipline. Ahuja was previously the first CFO at Tesla. The business announced that Ahuja will continue to serve as an advisor and that a search for a new CFO will start right now.
The cash infusion and leadership reorganization take place as Verily gears up for a new phase of expansion in the booming healthcare industry, which has drawn tech behemoths like Amazon and Apple. In a $3.9 billion deal earlier this year, Amazon purchased One Medical, a primary care organization that uses in-person, online, and virtual interactions in its services.
In order to provide healthcare that is tailored to a person’s unique needs, Verily is particularly interested in “precision health,” a term used to characterize the combination of research, clinical and non-clinical data, and computer capacity. In other words, Verily, a company that emerged from Google X in 2015, seeks to employ technology to deliver healthcare to specific individuals rather than the general population.
According to Verily, the money may potentially be used to fund possible acquisitions, international business growth, and strategic alliances. The business has already executed at least one purchase and secured a number of partnerships. To grow its clinical trial infrastructure, the company acquired research software maker SignalPath in 2021. Additionally, it collaborates with Lumea, L’Oreal, Microsoft, and the Mayo Clinic.
