San Francisco’s Forward, a once high-flying startup that failed to popularize its tech-laden “AI doctor’s office,” is abruptly closing down.
The homepage of the company’s website currently reads a shutdown notice. It says Forward is closing clinics, canceling patients’ scheduled visits and turning off its mobile app. The company wrote, “We know this news is abrupt,” and promised that its medical staff would be reachable by email until Dec. 13. Per Business Insider, Forward also shared the message with customers in a late-night email Tuesday.
Forward’s shutdown is a brutal outcome for investors and employees; according to the Information, the company’s nearly 200 workers are set to lose their jobs. It wasn’t so long ago that the company was flying high. A 2021 funding round featured several blue-chip Silicon Valley investors and valued Forward at over $1 billion. A year ago, the company snagged a fresh $100 million, bringing its lifetime fundraising to over $650 million, according to TechCrunch.
The company already had tech-boosted clinics, but that $100 million was meant to help Forward launch, distribute and popularize its CarePod kiosks. The kiosks were billed as “the world’s first AI doctor’s office,” including a seat, various scanners, and the equipment to perform throat swabs and draw blood. Per TechCrunch, a CarePod subscription cost $99 a month, and Forward didn’t accept insurance.
CEO and founder Adrian Aoun was hyping his CarePods on CNN as recently as September. In the interview, he mentioned getting handed a clipboard and paper at the doctor’s office and said patients are getting “abused” by a health care system stuck in its low-tech ways.
“So we just said, let’s build health care in the same way that you would build a Tesla, the same way you’d build an iPhone, the same way you build a modern TV,” Aoun said. “Which is: It’s just kind of modern and intuitive and uses the latest technology.”
But his pitch wasn’t enough to keep the company going. Business Insider reported that the company launched its first CarePod in Roseville in summer 2023. But despite planning to launch 3,200 CarePods, Forward listed only two locations on its website just before the shutdown, the outlet reported.
Citing conversations with 11 former employees, Business Insider wrote that Forward was burning through its cash and had cut costs by laying off workers and removing services from its clinics. Reportedly, the company also was struggling to set up more CarePod kiosks, which four employees said cost more than $1 million each, and the kiosks that were open occasionally trapped patients inside.
Now, other pages on Forward’s website beyond the homepage all have the same message: “Much like the healthcare system, this link is broken.”
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