Did you know it's illegal to use Facebook ads, Google Analytics, or YouTube to market many healthcare services if you’re not following strict privacy laws? The industry got a wake-up call in 2022 when the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) guidance on web tracking technologies exposed a glaring issue: ubiquitous third-party marketing tools violate HIPAA. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has not hesitated, hitting health systems and companies like GoodRx with enforcement actions for leaking patient data to these tech giants.
This has created a critical challenge for healthcare organizations as attention moves online: how do they digitally market their services while remaining HIPAA-compliant? Without alternative solutions, medical breakthroughs and services will go unadopted, begging the question: if a cure or service is available, but no doctors or patients are around to hear about it, does it save lives?
Freshpaint is the answer to this predicament. Its healthcare privacy platform de-identifies and filters out sensitive customer data, while allowing healthcare marketers to keep using the best-in-class ads, analytics, and marketing personalization tools. By helping healthcare organizations avoid patient data leaks and hefty fines without having to rebuild their whole tech stack, Freshpaint is uniquely serving a burning unmet need in the healthcare industry—and it experienced rapid 10x revenue growth last year.
Health & PharmaTech is one of SignalFire's top investment sectors, so we've seen firsthand how startups and the incumbents they work with struggle with HIPAA compliance for marketing. That's why we're co-leading a $30 million Series B funding round for Freshpaint alongside our friends at Threshold. By handling the data privacy work, Freshpaint lets its customers focus on making the world healthier.
Plugging healthcare's leaks
HIPAA has become a serious board-level concern since the FTC hit BetterHelp with a $7.8 million fine for compliance violations. FTC enforcement actions are not just costly, they can ruin patient trust.
Freshpaint is the best way to get compliant without long re-engineering and implementation delays. Freshpaint’s privacy platform helps healthcare organizations:
- Leverage the entire digital advertising ecosystem to reach consumers without violating privacy rules
- Help consumers find the care they need using tools that previously raised privacy concerns
- Better inform business decisions by painting a complete picture of the consumer journey—from click to care
- Maintain compliance and keep everyone aligned using data and monitoring tools purpose-built for healthcare
These empower healthcare organizations to maintain their marketing effectiveness without compromising patient privacy or risking HIPAA violations.
“Healthcare providers are the canary in the coal mine when it comes to consumer privacy. We're headed towards a world where third-party cookies and unfettered access to customer data by tracking technologies are relics of the past,” said Freshpaint CEO Steven Fitzsimmons*.
Throughout our healthcare network and portfolio of leading digital health companies, we kept hearing that these potential consumer privacy violations posed an impossible choice: either shut off the marketing lifeblood for new patient acquisition or risk existential fines and irreversible damage to your brand. One option, which stood head and shoulders above the rest, was Freshpaint.
We know firsthand just how generational this opportunity is. It’s buoyed by the massive tailwinds, including greater regulatory complexity, rigorous FTC enforcement of HHS guidelines, the reputation-shattering risk of misusing patient data, and the rising wave of anxiety from Gen AI, data sovereignty, and data exfiltration. We know each hospital kicks off 50 petabytes of data every year, and only 3% of that is actually used. As LLMs start to harness more of the 80% of healthcare data that's currently unstructured, the surface area of exposure has become exponentially larger.
Freshpaint is just in the early innings of building a category-defining company. It’s bringing a HIPAA-compliant privacy platform with a broader suite of marketing tools specifically designed for healthcare that brings e-commerce-type sophistication to the historically tech-laggard industry.
Flagship health systems, providers, pharmacy benefit managers, pharmacies, and direct-to-consumer digital health companies alike are trusting their data privacy to Freshpaint, including Baptist Health, Yale, Modern Health, Allergy Partners, and more. If your healthcare organization is interested in proactively mitigating HIPAA compliance risk and best-in-class marketing that protects patient privacy, you can book a Freshpaint demo here.
To support Freshpaint’s rapid growth, SignalFire is providing our in-house Beacon AI we built to help portfolio companies hire the best talent. Our data signals can identify when someone is ready to leave their existing role so Freshpaint can recruit them before they’re formally in-market and getting competing offers. We also bring healthcare go-to-market expertise from our deep network of industry advisors and executives-in-residence like Evolent Health ($EVH) founders Frank Williams and Tom Peterson.
Looking to the future, Freshpaint will only become more essential as LLM technology starts to unlock value from the petabytes of data healthcare companies and hospitals produce but hardly use today. “Our platform not only solves immediate regulatory challenges,” Fitzsimmons explains, “but also opens up new possibilities for personalized, privacy-conscious healthcare marketing.”
Hundred-million-dollar marketing budgets are being burnt with little understanding of what’s driving revenue lift. Freshpaint could tie all the attribution data together in a HIPAA-compliant manner. That would finally enable healthcare companies to properly measure and target their marketing spend so the treatments of tomorrow reach those in need.
* Portfolio company founders have not received any direct compensation for this feedback. These founders may or may not serve as Affiliate Advisors, Retained Advisors, or consultants to provide their expertise on a formal or ad hoc basis. They are not employed by SignalFire and do not provide investment advisory services to clients on behalf of SignalFire. They may or may not have made a personal investment into a SignalFire fund.
*Portfolio company founders listed above have not received any compensation for this feedback and may or may not have invested in a SignalFire fund. These founders may or may not serve as Affiliate Advisors, Retained Advisors, or consultants to provide their expertise on a formal or ad hoc basis. They are not employed by SignalFire and do not provide investment advisory services to clients on behalf of SignalFire. Please refer to our disclosures page for additional disclosures.
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