Garner Health has closed a $100 million Series E funding round at a $2.74 billion valuation. The company runs a digital platform that helps patients find better doctors by combining detailed provider data with financial incentives that reward employees for choosing high-performing physicians. Nick Reber, who previously worked on analytics and provider network development at Oscar Health, founded the company on a straightforward idea: choosing the right doctor is the most important decision a patient makes, yet most Americans have almost no reliable way to make that call.
Healthcare costs are rising fast, and employers are feeling it. U.S. employer healthcare costs are projected to increase 9.5 percent in 2026, surpassing $17,000 per employee, according to Aon. Mercer puts the per-employee cost increase at 6.5 percent for the same year, the highest rate since 2010 even after employers make plan adjustments to hold costs down. Faced with that pressure, more companies are looking beyond traditional cost-shifting strategies. About 35 percent of large employers now offer at least one plan that steers employees toward smaller networks of better-performing providers, a Mercer survey found.
Index Ventures led the round. Kleiner Perkins, Redpoint, Thrive, Sequoia, Founders Fund, and Kaiser Permanente Ventures all participated as returning investors. The syndicate brings together financial backers and a major health insurance operator, Kaiser Permanente Ventures, reflecting interest from across the healthcare industry.
Most patients pick a doctor based on location, a referral from a friend, or whatever name appears in their insurance directory. None of those methods tell a patient much about whether a doctor actually produces good outcomes. According to Garner, physicians in the top quarter have roughly four times lower complication rates than those in the bottom quarter. That gap is real, but it is almost never visible to patients at the point when they are choosing their care.
Even patients who want to find better doctors face a second obstacle: there is no financial reason to bother under most standard insurance plans. Garner tries to solve both problems together. The platform scores physicians using claims data, then arranges for employers to cover most or all out-of-pocket costs when a member picks a high-scoring provider. The company says that pairing information with a direct financial reward is what actually moves people to act.
"The American healthcare system pays doctors to do things to you, not for you. Garner is quietly fixing that," said Jahanvi Sardana, Partner at Index Ventures. "By using AI to make physician quality measurable for the first time, they've built the market mechanism healthcare always needed — one where employers, hospitals, and patients can finally see who delivers better outcomes, and the system rewards them for it. It's one of the most important applications of AI in healthcare today." — Jahanvi Sardana, Partner at Index Ventures
The funding will go toward three areas: expanding the provider quality platform, developing new AI-powered products, and reaching more members. Garner currently serves more than 2.5 million people through almost 800 employer and partner clients.
Two AI products sit at the center of the company's near-term plans. The Garner Research Agent works in the background, continuously reviewing published medical literature and converting findings into algorithms that evaluate how well individual physicians perform. This is meant to keep the company's clinical scoring up to date as medical knowledge evolves. On the member side, the Garner Assistant lets users search for in-network doctors, book appointments, review their benefits, and track claims and reimbursements in one place. Alongside the fundraise, the company ran a second tender offer for employees, a process that lets staff sell shares before a public listing.
Garner has also been building relationships with hospital systems and care providers. Mercy, Atlantic Health, Teladoc, and Marathon Health now use Garner's data tools to assess their own physicians' performance and guide referrals to high-performing specialists. Some hospitals have voluntarily reduced their prices to attract patients coming through Garner's platform. Garner describes this as the kind of two-sided market healthcare has lacked, where provider volume flows toward quality rather than volume of procedures.
Reber spent years at Bridgewater Associates as co-head of Research Analytics before moving to Oscar Health, where he worked on provider networks. He built Garner around the idea that better data could change how patients and employers choose physicians, moving decisions away from availability and toward actual outcomes.
The platform draws on a claims database that Garner says covers more than 60 billion medical records from 320 million patients. From that data, the company generates over 550 clinical metrics used to rank physicians on quality and efficiency. When an employee picks a top-ranked doctor, their employer covers most or all of their out-of-pocket costs. Garner reports that members pay on average 80 percent less out-of-pocket when seeing these providers, and that employers see a 12 percent reduction in total healthcare spending in their first year on the platform.
"Healthcare doesn't change through incremental tweaks—it changes when consumers finally have the information and incentives they need to make better decisions about their care," said Nick Reber, CEO of Garner Health. "Our mission at Garner is to fundamentally realign the system around quality by empowering people to choose the doctors who deliver the best outcomes. When you give consumers the right data and align incentives around better care, the entire healthcare system will change for the better." — Nick Reber, CEO of Garner Health
The company's clients include USA Today, Paylocity, the University of Oklahoma, and Archer-Daniels-Midland, which employs over 44,000 people. Gross annual recurring revenue stands at approximately $200 million and has more than doubled each year for five consecutive years. Garner says it has saved customers over $1 billion in total.
Index Ventures led the Series E. The firm invests across health and technology in the US and Europe. Returning backers include Kleiner Perkins, Redpoint, Thrive, Sequoia, Founders Fund, and Kaiser Permanente Ventures, the investment arm of one of the largest non-profit health plans in the country. Earlier investors listed on the company's website also include Abstract Ventures, Maverick Capital, and Optum.
