Abett, a Seattle-based startup that helps large employers manage and analyze health plan data, raised $11.6 million in a Series A round to help boost its software platform.
The company’s Lockbox product is built for benefits teams to share, store, and analyze data related to healthcare services offered to employees.
The idea is to show companies how they could alter benefits to save costs, among other uses.
“I don’t believe it’s well understood how much effort and expenses large employers devote to managing healthcare for employees and dependents,” said Abett CEO and co-founder Mike Hanlon.
Hanlon said the recent Change Healthcare cyberattack is driving employers to reassess where they keep data — which could be a tailwind for Abett.
The company is also helped by the passage in 2016 of the 21st Century Cures Act, which restricts information-blocking by providers and carriers over consumer healthcare data, as well as the 2021 Appropriations Act, which increased employee health plan transparency.
Hanlon was the seventh employee hired by Amazon, working on operations and software development from 1995 to 2001. He also worked as an economics professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a University of Washington research organization that studies global health statistics.
Abett employs 47 people, including several others who also worked at Amazon in the 1990s.
Acrew Capital led the round. Other backers include GreatPoint Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners, and Royal Street Ventures. Total funding to date is $27 million.
This is the second startup that Hanlon founded called Abett. The first iteration was a web app that allowed users to ask questions and crowdsource answers. That company shut down shortly after it was profiled by GeekWire in 2017.
