Simplee: The PayPal of Healthcare Payments Files for IPO to Transform U.S. Medical Billing

Simplee is a U.S. healthcare payment services software company founded in 2010, headquartered in Palo Alto, California. Its flagship product is a patient financial payment management platform.

Originating from the Pain Points of Healthcare Payment

In 2009, Tomer Shoval and his entire family fell ill while vacationing in Mexico. On their way back to the United States, he received invoices, bills, and insurance statements related to the trip. Frustrated by the hassle of managing these documents, he decided to develop software to help patients and healthcare providers manage and track healthcare expenses. At the time, Tomer Shoval was working at eBay. After resigning, he partnered with Roberto Rabinovich and Tom Tsarfati to found a company named Simplee in 2010.

Making Healthcare Payments More Transparent

Simplee is dedicated to helping healthcare institutions simplify and streamline the billing process with insurance companies and patients. The company describes its product as the first patient engagement solution that integrates hospital operations, physician assessments, reporting, payments, and credit services.

Simplee’s solution helps patients understand the cost categories they are responsible for, clarifies their insurance coverage, and determines exactly how much they need to pay.

Since the platform was integrated into healthcare providers’ systems, patients and providers have been able to view the same details, with the expectation of resolving payment issues through a more streamlined transaction process.

The need for Simplee’s services stems from the fact that even when patients have health insurance, they inevitably incur out-of-pocket expenses during medical care. Beyond standard copayments and deductible amounts associated with doctor visits, undergoing medical procedures often leads to numerous additional costs, including unnecessary healthcare expenditures, which frequently result in patient dissatisfaction. Healthcare institutions leverage Simplee’s easy-onboarding system and mobile integration platform to engage with patients throughout the entire journey, from initial cost estimation to final bill payment. This includes a PayPal-like platform where patients have a digital wallet and user-friendly payment tools, receive notifications, and enjoy full transparency. In addition to simplifying the patient experience, Simplee also ensures a significantly streamlined revenue collection process for healthcare providers.

Beyond what has been mentioned above, hospital billing is a particularly dark art—a dizzying web capable of driving people to madness. A simple browse online readily uncovers numerous horror stories of insured individuals still driven to despair by unreasonably exorbitant bills.

Take the U.S. hospital billing system as an example; it is so chaotic that many critical components of bills frequently contain errors. Simplee also offers numerous recommendations, such as how to dispute charges with hospitals and ensure payment only for amounts genuinely owed. For healthcare providers, disputing incorrect bills with patients is a lengthy process during which payments are withheld. Simplee aims to help hospitals significantly reduce wasted time and resources, thereby improving profitability, through the adoption of its system.

Product System

The Simplee financial software payment platform primarily consists of the following three core products:

1. Simplee Estimates: Simplee Estimates enable healthcare providers to build trust with patients from the outset; the estimation model facilitates patient education, offers personalized insights, sets expectations, and fosters patient-provider relationships.

2. Simplee Wallet: Through intelligent and coordinated communication, users can understand their outstanding balances and the reasons behind them; the self-service bill payment platform enables users to pay medical bills more conveniently;

3. Simplee Finance: Provides users with more user-friendly financial options and access to cash, while reducing the financial burden on both patients and healthcare providers.

Development History

In 2011, Simplee launched its first product. It was a free app called Simplee, designed to help consumers track medical expenses, similar to the financial management tools offered by Mint.com (a personal finance website).

This product, named Simplee Gen 1, integrates with health insurance accounts to enable healthcare institutions to provide more convenient medical billing and payment services.

In 2012, Simplee launched its enterprise-grade software platform, SimpleePAY, to serve healthcare institutions. SimpleePAY is specifically designed for healthcare providers, enabling patients to view and pay their medical bills online.

In 2013, Simplee developed a new B2B payment and patient loyalty service platform for hospitals. Hospitals can use this platform to send digital bills to patients and also provide other services. At the same time, Simplee works with its special clientsEl Camino HospitalBecame partners.

In 2014, Simplee expanded its customer base by adding healthcare institutions such as Cardinal Health,Gundersen Health System, LifePoint Health, and the largest healthcare provider in TexasMemorial Hermann，Healthcare System. In the same year, Simplee also partnered with ExactTarget,VantivandWells Fargobecame partners.

Since launching its first hospital service platform in 2013, Simplee is now used by more than 900 U.S. hospitals and physician organizations, serving approximately 5 million patients and facilitating annual bill payments exceeding $1 billion. Today, Simplee’s financial payment platform is dedicated to continuously engaging patients, building trust, expanding channels, and ensuring payment security.

Core Members

Tomer Shoval, CEO

Tomer Shoval is Jewish. He attended the renowned Israeli institution, The Academic College of Tel-Aviv, from 1997 to 2000. Between 2005 and 2010, he worked at eBay, where he started as Head of Product and was promoted to General Manager of eBay’s North American website within just three years, demonstrating strong individual capabilities and extensive mid-to-senior level management experience. In 2010, he left eBay to found Simplee, serving as its CEO.

Robert Rabinovich, COO

Robert Rabinovich is an Israeli national. He studied at the prestigious Israel Institute of Technology from 1993 to 1997. From 2000 to 2010, he worked at eBay, where he served as Global Head of Product. In 2010, he left eBay and co-founded Simplee with Tomer Shoval and Tom Tsarfati, serving as its Chief Operating Officer (COO).

Tom Tsarfati，CTO

Tom Tsarfati is an Israeli national who attended a prestigious university in Israel from 2001 to 2004.Bar-Ilan University. From 2006 to 2010, he served as Head of Software Engineering at EMC, where he accumulated extensive technical experience. In 2010, he left EMC and co-founded Simplee with Tomer Shoval and Robert Rabinovich, serving as its CTO.

Financing History

Since its inception, Simplee has completed multiple rounds of financing. The latest round occurred on May 10 this year, when Simplee closed a $20 million Series C funding round led by Social Capital, bringing its total cumulative funding to $37.8 million.

Investment Institutions:

Greylock IL: Later renamed 83North, it is an Israeli venture capital firm managing over $550 million in funds, with offices in both London and Israel, focusing on investing in outstanding European and Israeli companies.

Social Capital: Founded in 2011, Social Capital is a U.S. venture capital firm with investment interests spanning software companies, education, healthcare, and other sectors.

Heritage Group: An investment fund focused on leading healthcare innovation companies, providing investment, operational guidance, and advisory services to startups, while serving leading hospitals, health systems, and healthcare companies across the United States.

Simplee's Historical Financing Rounds

Simplee: Changing the Future

Like many other countries, the U.S. healthcare system is grappling with a phenomenon in which healthcare providers charge exorbitant rates to insurance companies, ultimately shifting the financial burden onto patients.

Medical billing systems have become so complex that progress is difficult, often resulting in significant inefficiencies. Given the fundamental nature of this issue within the healthcare system, companies need to address it from more effective entry points.

Simplee was founded to address these challenges. By making the entire medical billing management process more manageable and transparent, Simplee has begun to make an impact in the industry.

Furthermore, Heritage Group, an investor in Simplee, is a strategic investor within the U.S. healthcare system with investments in over one hundred hospitals. With the support of Heritage Group, Simplee will be positioned to integrate a broader range of healthcare providers.