Companies that address individuals' nonmedical social needs such as food insecurity, transportation, isolation and loneliness, are carving out a place in the healthcare market.

Many of these companies work with health plans to serve hard-to-reach, vulnerable populations, and, as these startups grow, there are opportunities to combine capabilities to extend their reach.

Social health platform Pyx Health has acquired FarmboxRx to build out its services to address food insecurity and strengthen its member engagement.

The acquisition was made possible by a $47.5 million investment from S2G Investments, a multistage investment firm, in strategic partnership with TT Capital Partners, which first invested in Pyx Health in 2023. 

With the investment, Pyx Health will be able to serve more members, especially in the Medicare, dual-eligible, and Affordable Care Act exchange populations, according to the company.

The acquisition combines the companies’ strong track records in healthcare and food systems to drive innovation at the intersection of two historically siloed sectors, executives said.

Pyx Health, which launched in 2017, developed a care navigation model to addresses nonmedical drivers of health like loneliness, transportation and housing. The Pyx Health platform combines human support and an interactive mobile app to offer personalized care coordination, resource navigation, empathy-led coaching for behavior change and self-reliance, and unlimited virtual support for members, according to the company. The services are provided by health insurance plans as a benefit to their members at no cost.

FarmboxRx touts itself as a member engagement platform that partners with healthcare organizations to improve member health outcomes via customizable nutrition solutions and health literacy. The company delivers healthy foods to low-income Americans in food deserts through their health insurance plans.

FarmboxRx's focus on member engagement piqued the interest of Pyx Health CEO and co-founder Cindy Jordan.

"If you had asked me, just from the pure M&A pipeline, would Pyx want to acquire a food company, I would have said no," Jordan said in an interview about the acquisition.

"But once we met with them and saw the way that they were thinking about food as engagement, not food as medicine, not medically tailored foods, but actually using a box of food to engage members, it was really a profound moment for us because food is really intimate. It goes into your home, and it sits on your table and it is far better than trying to text members or send emails or do phone calls. So, we really looked at food as not only the right thing to do, but also a way to increase member engagement, which is what we focus on and we started basically with a focus on loneliness."

With the addition of FarmboxRx’s customized nutritional support, the combined platform will help address food insecurity, the top social barrier identified among Pyx Health members, and incentivize behaviors such as scheduling preventive visits and completing health assessments, the companies said.

Jordan said the company used the majority of the $47.5 million investment for the FarmboxRx acquisition, but she declined to disclose specific financial details of the deal.

Ashley Tyrner-Dolce started FarmboxRx in 2014 based on her lived experiences as a single mother on food stamps living in a rural food desert. The company now works with more than 90 health plans to deliver healthy food boxes while also including education, nudges and reminders to get members involved in managing their care through preventative actions like health screenings and lifestyle improvements. 

FarmboxRx has delivered produce to 2.7 million households.

The company has received acquisition offers, but none of them were the right fit, until now, Tyrner-Dolce said.

In March, FarmboxRx announced it would roll out a platform to address social determinants of health needs. Slated to launch in June, the product, called Drivers Health, would act as a care management intervention to connect members to underutilized benefits through food deliveries, the company said.

FarmboxRx was planning to raise private equity and growth capital to build an internal tech stack to support Drivers Health, Tyrner-Dolce said.

"When I met Cindy, within the first 20 minutes, I looked at my chief operating officer and I said, 'They built Drivers Health.' So, I knew right away that it was the right fit. I knew that this was the right home because they're combating loneliness, but also they're a member engagement company. At the end of the day, FarmboxRx has always been a member engagement company, we just do it through food," Tyrner-Dolce said in an interview. "I just saw the vision of these two companies together really will change the face of member engagement and how health plans look to engage their members."

For Jordan, tackling loneliness is a deeply personal mission. Cindy and her wife Anne Jordan launched Pyx Health in 2017, inspired by their daughter’s struggle with mental health and chronic loneliness. Their daughter was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and, as Cindy and Anne searched for answers about their daughter's downward spiral, they asked her about the early warning signs. She described feeling a profound loneliness, Jordan said.

"At the time, we were the only developed country in the world that didn't treat loneliness like a diagnosable, treatable mental health condition," she said. Pyx Health initially began as a point solution to address loneliness.

Tragically, Cindy and Anne's daughter lost her battle with mental health.

"During the pandemic, her carefully constructed world fell apart, and she ended up passing away. Like Ashley, this became very, very personal to us," Jordan said. "My wife Anne and I had to stop another family from going through what we went through. But what we learned in the evolution, which brings us to member engagement, is that when we were kind of shaking the tree of loneliness, all kinds of social needs were falling out. We had to do more. That's when we built a very large virtual care coordination team."

Pyx Health combines empathetic care coordinators with 24/7 mobile technology to provide meaningful support to members.

Health plan partners have seen many positive benefits with Pyx Health’s innovative approach, including a reported 23% reduction in behavioral health hospital admissions, a 19% decrease in “unhealthy days” per month and a 48% reduction in overall healthcare costs, according to the company.

Both companies are focused on engaging members to increase preventive care and chronic condition management, with the ultimate goal to foster long-term behavior change. The key to that relationship is trust, Tyrner-Dolce said.

"Lead with empathy. Lead with food. We say that the food box is really interesting. You have got to open the food box. You have to open the door of trust with members before you can have any positive ROI or health outcome impact," Jordan said.

Tyrner-Dolce added, "These two companies coming together are going to change that face of engagement. How health plans look to engage their members, you don't have to get ahead of your skis. It doesn't have to be drones flying over members' homes or AI everything. Sending a box of food to somebody's home, of the populations that we serve, that may not seem like a lot to you or I to do, but it can be everything to them."

"If you put self-value and self-worth together, you will go take the self-efficacy journey in your own healthcare. Nobody wakes up and says, 'I want to be Type 2 diabetic. I want to be lonely or I want to have cancer.' People don't have accessibility and don't have affordability in that they don't know where to start to navigate the health system," Tyrner-Dolce said.

Improving member engagement is a top focus for health plans. "There is a massive opportunity, particularly with this acquisition, to win this space," Jordan noted. 

She added, "Health plans want vendors to do more with their members. This is also a defensive play. Coming together gives us a better chance of not only surviving this market but thriving."

The companies are working to integrate their platforms and operations to offer an expanded offering across health plans and provider networks. 

“Pyx Health and FarmboxRx are a natural match—both are mission-driven, outcomes-oriented, and laser-focused on advancing health equity through innovation,” said Dan Ripma, vice president at S2G, in a statement. “We’re proud to back this union and help catalyze its next phase of growth. We believe this partnership will set a new bar for how technology and human connection can come together to transform health engagement.”

Editor's Note: This story has been edited to correctly attribute a quote about member engagement to Ashley Tyrner-Dolce.