LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Louisville-area startup RxLightning Inc. plans to use a $17.5 million infusion from investors to grow its healthcare technology business, including tripling its workforce over the next two years.
Founded in 2020, New Albany, Ind.-based RxLightning makes software that speeds the paper-laden process of patients getting started on more than 1,200 specialty medications — high-cost drugs that treat cancers and rare genetic disorders, for example.
CEO and co-founder Julia Regan described the product as “a really sophisticated DocuSign that’s designed for healthcare.”
The company’s customers are drug manufacturers and specialty pharmacies who benefit from RxLightning’s streamlined process, which enables quicker enrollment of patients for specialty meds.
“We really don’t have direct competitors,” Regan told WDRB News in an interview Tuesday. “We look at our competition as the fax machine and paper and phone calls, which is just really inefficient. And I think that’s one of the reasons why we’ve been able to grow so rapidly.”
The $17.5 million Series A funding round announced Tuesday brings RxLightning’s total investor funding to $20.5 million. LRVHealth, a healthcare venture capital firm based in Boston, is the lead investor.
Regan declined to reveal the valuation implied by the funding nor the company’s sales, but she said the company’s revenue doubled last year and is expected to quadruple in 2023.
“We’ve hit metrics that most three-year-old companies can only dream about,” she said.
RxLightning is taking two floors of a renovated historic building in downtown New Albany to house its workforce.
However, because the company launched in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, about half of its nearly 50 employees do not live in the Louisville area, Regan said. As the company looks to grow to 175, some roles will require a local presence while others may be remote, she said.
“We will get the best talent where we need to and create a really good hybrid culture,” she said.
