Kristen Valdes, CEO & Founder of B.well: $100 Million Raised to Reimagine the Healthcare Experience

Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech's most innovative B2B founders. In today’s episode, we’re speaking with Kristen Valdes, CEO & Founder of B.well, a digital health platform that's raised over $100 Million in funding. Here are the most interesting points from our conversation: The Founding Story: Kristen’s personal healthcare struggle with her daughter, who suffered a near-fatal incident due to fragmented medical records, inspired her to build B.well. This experience exposed how broken the system was for consumers, leading her to create a platform that empowers families with tools to manage their own healthcare. System Design Flaws: Kristen believes the healthcare system isn’t "broken" but designed poorly, prioritizing "sick care" over preventative, holistic health. She emphasizes that the system operates as intended, driven by fee-for-service payments, which incentivizes more procedures rather than better outcomes. Value-Based Care: Transitioning to value-based care is critical for improving healthcare outcomes, but it's a slow and challenging process. Kristen estimates it could take another 10-15 years before value-based models dominate. Providers and hospitals need to trust the transition before they fully commit to abandoning fee-for-service models. Consumer Experience Platforms: B.well is a "consumer health experience platform" that focuses on solving the fragmentation of healthcare data. The platform allows users to manage their medical records, receive personalized health insights, and access care across different providers—all through a single mobile interface. Fragmentation and Transparency: Kristen emphasizes that the real challenge in healthcare today is the fragmentation of data. B.well has worked on government initiatives aimed at increasing transparency, from medical records to pricing, in order to drive more innovation and competition in healthcare. Marketing and Category Creation: Kristen shared insights into B.well’s journey in creating a new category—Healthcare Consumer Experience Platforms. Despite the long and difficult process, persistence, thought leadership, and industry collaboration helped B.well succeed in defining this space and gaining analyst recognition from Forrester and Gartner.     //   Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe.  www.GlobalTalent.co