League eyes path for growth fuelled by new alliances

Retailers back wellness firm amid pandemic

Health-benefits company League is looking to expand globally based on the strength of the digital health partnerships it has forged during the pandemic.

The Toronto-based firm announced a deal with Loblaw last month to launch a health app that offers people PC Optimum rewards for reaching personalized health milestones. Chief executive Mike Serbinis sees similar partnerships in other countries as key to League's success. “I see us continuing to sign up partnerships with the largest pharmacy retailers, the largest hospital systems in the U.S., the largest insurance companies. I see us in Europe and Asia,” Serbinis said in an interview with The Logic. “We started talking to the largest cloud provider in Asia about partnering up to reach countries like China, Japan.”

The focus on offering a digital health-benefits platform for large firms like Loblaw is the latest venture for League, which launched with much fanfare in 2015. It started as a wellness app that let users book appointments with nearby health professionals. In 2016, it pivoted to focusing on selling benefits plans to small businesses. The company abandoned that small-business focus in 2018, instead targeting firms with over 250 staff. While those enterprise sales are still a part of League's business — one it expects to grow — its new emphasis is on providing a tech platform to major pharmacies, retailers, financial institutions and health systems. Its first partnership in that division is with Loblaw.

The company raised money in 2018, closing a $62-million Series B led by Telus's venture capital arm. That fell short of Serbinis's publicly stated goal of US$100 million. League brought in an undisclosed sum in September 2019, and Serbinis said there's been interest from investors more recently.

“Every digital health investor out there is banging on doors like ours,” said Serbinis. “It's possible that we could raise by the end of this year, or early in the new year, but there's no rush for us.”

The global digital healthcare market is set to increase sixfold from 2019 to 2026 to reach US$639.4 billion, according to a June report from Delaware-based research firm Global Market Insights. Part of that growth comes from online health care increasingly being seen as a priority for executives, according to Sid Paquette, RBC's head of technology and innovation banking and a League board member.

“The purchasing discussions regarding the League platform have moved from the business units up to the boardrooms,” said Paquette.

“There is a lot of interest in transforming the health-care direction of organizations, and that's where League's been playing into, and it's been hugely successful for the company.”

Serbinis said the pandemic has created an opportunity for League to beat out the competition from hospital systems and insurance companies that are increasingly offering virtual care.

“You can have infinite money, which they don't. But you can't have a time machine to go back in time to when you should have started working on this,” said Serbinis.

To capitalize on the opportunity, League is looking to add 150 staff in the new year, Serbinis said. The company currently has about 270 fulltime employees plus another 100 working full time via a contractor out of Manila. However, the planned staff increase is relatively less than what some other Canadian healthtech firms are doing. In May, for example, The Logic reported that Montreal-based telemedicine provider Dialogue had quadrupled its staff during the pandemic from 250 workers to almost 1,000. Serbinis said that whereas Dialogue hires medical staff to serve users, League's focus on providing a digital platform lets the company compete with fewer staff.

This isn't League's first international push. It first announced such plans in 2015, and Serbinis cited it as part of the company's roadmap after closing the Series B in 2018, saying it would open offices in London. Though it now operates in the U.K. and Ireland, the company decided it didn't

I SEE US CONTINUING TO SIGN UP PARTNERSHIPS. I SEE US IN EUROPE AND ASIA.

yet need a permanent office space there, with its staff working remotely. The company is still considering one in London in the future.

League is Serbinis's third major startup. He sold his cloud-based document-storage company DocSpace for US$568 million in 1999, and in 2011, sold the e-reading firm he co-founded, Kobo, for US$315 million.

However, he said he isn't looking to sell League anytime soon. At least seven healthtech companies went public in the first nine months of 2020. But Serbinis has a warning for smaller firms that are looking to go public on exchanges like the TSX Venture Exchange.

“I've been through this, and I know what happens at the other end, once the market cools down,” Serbinis said. “Then you're wondering why your stock is worth two cents — and then you get delisted.”