Developer of App For Managing Musculoskeletal Conditions Files For IPO
A San Francisco-based company that market virtual programs for musculoskeletal conditions has filed papers to sell its shares to the public for the first time.
The dollar details and the scope of Hinge Health Inc.’s IPO plan have yet to be sorted out. The 13-year-old company says its platform “can address needs across demographics, occupations, and lifestyles with no direct costs for members,” which have access to its application via their employers and totaled more than 530,000 at the end of last year. Hinge’s offering helps people recover from acute injuries and manage chronic pain as well as post-surgical rehabilitation.
The Hinge team has been on a roll: The company booked $390 million in sales last year, up a third from 2023, and narrowed its net loss to $12 million from more than $108 million the year before. It generated $49 million in cash from operations last year (after using $64 million in 2023) and grew its customer base to nearly 2,300 business clients, including about 42 percent of the Fortune 500. The company also has partnerships with more than 50 entities such as health plans and pharmacy benefit managers.
In their prospectus, CEO Daniel Perez and his team say that growth has still only gotten them to the point where Hinge’s contracted lives represent 5 percent of what they consider the company’s total addressable market. Pushing that number will mean spending much more.
“We expect our costs will continue to increase in the foreseeable future as we expect to invest additional funds to grow our business, maintain and increase our members and clients, expand our engagement with partners, hire additional employees, including our care team, develop new programs and enhance our platform,” the prospectus reads.
International growth is part of those plans: Last year, the company began rolling out its platform to the global workforces of U.S.-based multinational corporations and expanded into Canada. Up next for the first half of this year is a push into several European countries.
To the healthcare system, offerings such as Hinge’s have tremendous potential to lower the cost of care: A study published last spring by the Peterson Health Technology Institute said that, if a quarter of patients with lower back pain started combining digital platforms with guidance from physical therapists, they could generate annual savings of about $4.4 million per one million commercially insured individuals.
If the Hinge team completes its IPO plan, the company’s shares will trade under the ticker symbol HNGE. Investment bankers from Morgan Stanley, Barclays and BofA Securities are leading the effort, with peers from 11 other institutions supporting.
