Kips Health
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Kips Health was a Los Angeles healthcare startup founded in 2023 by Jarrett Perkins and Eric Wang. Billed as the only patient engagement software that pays you, it enabled physical therapists to automatically collect remote therapeutic monitoring (RTM) reimbursements with about five minutes of work. The two-founder team went through Y Combinator's Summer 2023 batch and raised a $500,000 pre-seed round; YC now lists the company as inactive.
02 / Kips Health FAILURE REASONS
Failure factors supported by the current evidence
The evidence on why Kips Health closed is thin: YC lists it as inactive and failure databases record its shutdown, with one archive attributing the failure to competition, but no postmortem or official statement was published. The public record shows a two-person team selling patient-engagement software into physical-therapy practices — a crowded digital-health market where tiny startups fight entrenched EHR vendors and long sales cycles. Demand-signal failure databases also count it as a case. Beyond that, no documented account of the company's final months exists.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Company founded
Jarrett Perkins and Eric Wang found Kips Health in Los Angeles and enter Y Combinator's Summer 2023 batch with patient-engagement software for physical therapists.
- Funding round
Kips Health raises a $500,000 pre-seed round.
- Closure announced
Failure archives record Kips Health's shutdown; YC lists the company as inactive.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Two people selling into clinics means the sales cycle will outlast your runway
- 02
Patient engagement is a feature of the EHR, not a standalone company, in most practices
- 03
Competition as a cause of death usually means nobody needed you specifically
- 04
No postmortem means the lessons die with the startup — write yours