Babylon Health

Babylon delivers healthcare via smart phone, employing doctors to provide easy access to advice and diagnoses.

During video visits, doctors listen and look carefully to diagnose users or their family member and then write prescriptions or refer them to a specialist if required. Patients are then required to rate their doctor to ensure a high quality service is maintained.

Regulated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), Babylon offers users a personal health service by providing immediate access to General Medical Council (GMC) registered doctors and British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) registered therapists.

It also offers Babylon Monitor - an app that enables users to track their mood and better understand their mental health. Users can sync their health data from their phone, wearables and apps into one centralised place. The app contains a unique mood wheel which offers key words to indicate emotions and moods, a place to attach notes, and insight into potential triggers that affect mental health.

Founded in January 2013 and launched to the public in April 2014, the service now covers over 800,000 people globally, with local services operating out of the U.K, Ireland and recently launched for East Africa in Rwanda. A number of leading health insurance providers, including Bupa and Aviva, plus over 120 other companies have also partnered with Babylon to offer its services to their employees as part of their benefits packages. It has also previously built a chatbot for the UK's NHS.

In August 2019 Babylon Health raised a $550m Series C, led by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. Other investors included Munich Re/ERGO Corporate Venture Fund, Vostok New Ventures and Kinnevik AB. The company stated it was providing 4,000 clinical consultations each day, covering 4.3m people worldwide.

In January 2020 it was revealed that Babylon had signed a 10-year deal with the UK's city of Wolverhampton, providing its 300,000 residents with an integrated health app. The company also announced it was in the process of rolling out services in 11 countries in Asia.

In June 2020 it was revealed that Babylon's GP at Hand app suffered a data breach, reportedly caused by a software issue. The breach, which affected 'a very small group of people' enabled patients to view recordings of a different patient's consultation.

In December 2020 VNV Global announced it was leading a $100m financing round into Babylon, with a $35m investment. Babylon stated it would use the new funding to invest in its continued international expansion and ongoing product development.

In early 2021 Babylon began to announce impressive hires for its US-based executive team, including CTO Steve Davis (former Head of Technology at Expedia Group), COO Stacy Saal (who previously developed Amazon Fresh and Prime Now) and CBO Paul-Henri Ferrand (former President of Google Cloud).

The company also stated that revenue was increasing at around 4x a year, with Babylon expecting to take in around $300m in 2021 (up from $20m in 2019).

In February 2021 Babylon Health stated it was pulling back from China, after the company 'couldn't come ip with a commercially viable model' with partner Tencent Holding's WeChat. CEO Ali Parsa stated that China partners were seeking on taking most of the shares in any partnerships so the health company was stepping back. Tencent also backs a competing service, WeDoctor. Babylon stated it would continue to expand in Asia, through markets including Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.

In June 2021, Babylon announced its plans to go public via a €3.6bn SPAC with Alkuri Global Acquisition Corp.

In October 2021 Babylon raised $200 million in a sustainability-linked investment.

Later in June 2023 the company announced it would go private and combine with digital therapeutics company MindMaze. The take-private proposal comes from investment manager AlbaCore Capital, and the transaction provided for a new capital structure with a significant reduction of pro forma company debt. Babylon received $34.5m in interim funding in addition to an amendment of its $300m loan agreement from AlbaCore. Babylon Health went public fewer than two years ago, and reported a 2023 first-quarter loss that doubled in size compared to a year ago. Babylon saw its losses grow to $63m in the first quarter compared to $29.1m in the first quarter of 2022.

That same month, on the 22nd of October, Babylon became a public company, trading on the NYSE under the ticker BBLN.