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Zaccaria Reitano, Ro’s co-founder and CEO, said that while he “never says never” about the possibility of the seven-year-old telehealth company going public, he believes the benefits of being a private company are growing.
Reitano dodged multiple questions from Axios reporter Dan Primack about whether the company has plans for an IPO in the near term — or in general — at Axios’ BFD event on October 22.
“I might give an unsatisfactory answer, but the truth is that right now, we are focused exclusively on providing a high-quality product to our patients,” Reitano said.
Ro has raised over $1 billion in venture capital from the likes of General Catalyst, Initialized Capital, and Torch Capital, among many others. Ro recently raised $150 million in a round led by ShawSpring Partners that valued the company at about $6.6 billion.
Reitano’s sentiments are likely shared by other late-stage startup founders as venture-backed companies continue to stay private longer, according to PitchBook data. Another factor keeping companies private is the emergence of the secondary derivatives market as an increasingly popular means of giving investors and employees some liquidity – although the majority of the activity surrounds a small number of companies.
He also talked about the company’s big “uncomfortable bet” on weight-loss drugs becoming available on the platform in 2023. Ro was founded in 2017 by Rob Schutz, Saman Rahmanian and Reitano as a telehealth company focused on erectile dysfunction. The company has expanded to include more health categories for men and women including hair growth, fertility and skin health. But it is now becoming known as a provider of multiple GLP-1s options.
Reitano said the company began developing the program to deliver such drugs in 2021, and moved a large proportion of its resources to this category at that time. It is now one of the fastest growing segments of its business.
“Providers want patients to have it, and patients want it badly. These things have never happened in any drug class before, so from our perspective, widespread adoption and use of GLP-1s is inevitable,” Reitano said. “.
He added that expansion was natural at the time for the company, as conditions such as obesity affected many of the other health categories the company focuses on including fertility and sexual health conditions such as erectile dysfunction.
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