Clearing Seed Stage

This is the Clearing pitch deck to raise a $20m seed round in 2021.

About

Clearing is a digital healthcare platform built to serve the more than 50M chronic pain sufferers in the United States. In partnership with leading physicians and researchers at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and the Hospital for Special Surgery, and with significant funding from top-tier investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Founders Fund, Breyer Capital, and a host of leading healthcare and consumer entrepreneurs (including the founders of Hims, Seamless Grubhub, Flatiron Health, Forward Health, Curology and more) we are on a mission to provide patients with access to comprehensive, opioid-free pain relief.

A serial entrepreneur thinks he can unseat CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid by helping treat chronic pain online.

Avi Dorfman, cofounder of real estate brokerage company Compass who is currently in a legal battle over his stake, said Tuesday that his latest project Clearing raised $20 million in seed funding at a $100 million valuation. Bessemer and Founders Fund led the round, which also included several angel investors.

Clearing is essentially an online pharmacy for topical pain relief cream prescribed by its network of medical professionals, Dorfman explained. Over time, he said he hopes to delve deeper into treating more intractable pain, but for now, he is focused on types of chronic pain that could not otherwise be treated with Bengay or physical therapy.

As other direct-to-consumer startups like Ro and Hims eye the ever-growing digital health market for acquisition targets, Clearing is taking a different approach by focusing specifically on treating pain. Bessemer’s Steve Krauss, who invested in Clearing, said that he thinks the company can still make plenty of money in a niche part of healthcare because of the sheer number of Americans who currently suffer from chronic pain.

Chronic pain is often treated with highly addictive medications including opioids. Because of the potential for abuse, current regulations prohibit telehealth companies from prescribing these classes of drugs to patients without meeting them in person first.

“If you are a pain sufferer, your daily existence, the social and emotional aspects, it’s different than someone who has hair loss or erectile dysfunction, no offense, and that’s really important,” Krauss told Insider.

Funding rounds

Pitch deck review summary

Structured summary review

Words

Fine.

Slide length

I doubt this is their actual, full deck. If it was, it’s on the short end.

Headers

The headers are a lot better than most. They look approximately the right length but the content needs to get to the point a bit more.

Appearance

Your design really doesn’t have to be that amazing. Whilst the design could be better, they don’t need to do more.

Narrative

They attempt to do a good job, but it’s not right. I presume they got help from an above-average consultant who sorts of gets it, but doesn’t.

Structure

Everything is fine.

Slides

There’s nothing commercial in the deck so I presume this isn’t their real deck.

Slide by slide review

Cover is fine.

The header should be the largest font size on a slide.

The header should spell out the point, not allude to it and then expect you to read the slide to understand why.

Why is this the case? Aren’t doctors prescribing? Are you saying doctors are dumb?

Founder wrote “During the pandemic, Hascalovici’s practice moved to telemedicine. He realized with Dorfman that treating chronic pain virtually could help increase access to high-quality care management for underserved patients.”

What’s the solution? Is it traditional of hipp-dippy something?

You’re just telling me there is a solution you can send to the door because Americans need more pain medication and Purdue didn’t do enough damage?

Founder wrote “Clearing patients answer a series of questions during the intake process that assesses their pain. Using software, it provides a probable diagnosis and refers the patient to a clinician on its website or app. That clinician will prescribe a topical treatment developed by Clearing that is mailed to the patient.

This isn’t quite a scalable solution- they have people doing one on one even if it is asynchronous. I would want to know the unit economics.  Slide is generally fine though.

Founder wrote “Patients are able to get a months’ worth of treatment and access to care for free. After the month is up, they can opt into a monthly, bimonthly, or annual subscription. Clearing does not currently accept insurance.

I think they are saying they can systemise this over time so it is software? They just aren’t saying it clearly. Slide is fine.

Founder wrote “With the funding, Clearing hopes to build additional services, such as a social network feature for chronic pain patients and offer other treatments like muscle relaxers.

Buddy, almost no startup should have a why now slide as you don’t. You are told you have to so you make something lame which I believe harms you.

If you want to make this slide, back it up with data. Or don’t call itr a timing slide and combine it with your industry section so you explain directionally what is happening.

Founder wrote “Dorfman and Krauss both told Insider that the pandemic was the catalyst for launching Clearing due to the rapid adoption and patient preference of telemedicine and direct-to-consumer pharmacies like Capsule.

The title should show a different slide content.

Competition slide should show the gap int he market you target in this instance. They only have two not four axis labels. So the opposite Y axis is not personalised? I’m so confused by what they did here.

Founder wrote “Direct-to-consumer healthcare is ushering in a new wave of healthcare companies that cater to patients’ interests over other stakeholders like clinics or insurance companies, Krauss said.

Pointless slide. Don’t make pointless slides. You’ll read this and think thanks for reporting to duty captain obvious, but people still do it.

Founder wrote “”It’s not a small vision that requires small dollars,” Krauss said. He likened Clearing’s ambition to Uber or DoorDash, which have become household names in their respective industries.

I think that the point is they can increase LTV by continuing to improve client needs over time.

Founder wrote “Part of that vision includes compiling data that can better inform chronic pain treatment regimens in the future. Without that data, Dorfman said, “It’s difficult to know which [treatments] are effective and which are hocus pocus.”

Slide is ok but I want to know why you are the best team. I want bullets for each person.

Founder wrote “Dorfman tapped other tech startup executives from ClassPass, Uber, FanDuel, and Ellevest to build Clearing. Hascalovici will oversee the clinical team and see every Clearing patient at launch, he said.

No one cares about your advisory team.

Founder wrote “Although Clearing does not have a formal board of investors, it did create a medical advisory board. It tapped orthopedists, pain specialists, and lifestyle clinicians to provide different perspectives on pain treatment.

Pointless slide.

Founder wrote “It developed a personalized set of physical therapy tools that patients can use in addition to its topical creams as part of a comprehensive treatment plan patients can follow or adjust as needed.

You don’t put an appendix in a deck. You save for when investors ask questions or ask for more info.

Founder wrote “”It’s very important to note that we are not reinventing what a pain management clinic does today,” Dorfman said.

They should start with this slide and it’s one of the first things I joked about regarding Purdue, remember? They did a terrible job explainin the why of why this startup needs to exist.

Founder wrote “Clearing will not prescribe opioids, Dorfman said, partly due to regulations around telemedicine prescriptions and partly due to the epidemic of abuse among chronic pain patients.

Another pointless slide.

Founder wrote “Clearing is currently treating patients located in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, California, Illinois, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina and hopes to be up and running in Texas in the coming weeks.

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