He Raised Over $65 Million To Build The Largest Virtual Cardiologist Practice In The US, Serving All 50 States

Jeffrey Wessler’s story is a captivating blend of medicine, innovation, and entrepreneurship. He is a cardiologist and the founder of Heartbeat Health, the largest, countrywide virtual cardiologist practice in the US.

In this exclusive interview, Jeffrey discusses in detail how he built, scaled, and funded his company, attracting investment from tier-one investors.

Listen to the full podcast episode and review the transcript here.

Early Years Growing Up in Boston

Born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, Jeffrey grew up surrounded by a family deeply rooted in medicine and healthcare. With a cardiologist grandfather and brother, it’s no surprise that medicine was a constant topic at the dinner table.

After leaving Boston, Jeffrey’s educational journey took him from Williams College to Cambridge, where he studied public health in epidemiology. During this time, he was first introduced to public health and healthcare care at a broad scale and how population levels impact health.

Later, Jeffrey went back to med school and earned a medical degree from Harvard. His next stop was New York, where he studied medicine and cardiology.

While Jeffrey explored other fields during his early academic years—majoring in organic chemistry and even considering architecture—his path always circled back to healthcare, particularly cardiovascular health.

The Inspiration Behind Heartbeat Health

A critical turning point in Jeffrey’s career came when he realized that groundbreaking innovations and advancements were being made in prestigious institutions like Northwell Health and New York-Presbyterian. The highest level of medicine worldwide is being done.

Amazing, top-level clinicians are working on science to deliver care and therapeutics, making great strides in the last decade. However, most patients and the population were still excluded from these innovations.

People who can’t show up at hospitals couldn’t get their care in the advanced settings. “There were two different worlds of healthcare,” he reflects, recognizing that while these institutions were pushing the frontiers of medicine, millions of patients still lacked access to quality care.

This disparity fueled Jeffrey’s desire to make a more significant impact, not just on an individual patient level but on a broader population scale. He didn’t want to merely work within the academic health system bubble—he wanted to reshape it.

This ambition led Jeffrey to the entrepreneurial world, and he soon founded Heartbeat Health, the largest virtual cardiology practice in the United States. The way he saw it, patient-clinician interaction is undoubtedly one of the purest forms of care out there.

However, Jeffrey started to think about how to get standards of care and high-quality care to groups of populations in numbers that can really change the course of a disease state, like, for instance, heart disease, heart attack, and strokes.

Jeffrey recognized the need for a new, innovative approach to delivering care.

A Leap from Medicine to Entrepreneurship

For many, transitioning from a highly specialized field like medicine to entrepreneurship is daunting, but it was both challenging and exhilarating for Jeffrey.

He recalls late-night train commutes from his residency at Columbia at 168th Street to his home on the Upper West Side, exhausted but contemplating a new way to approach cardiology care.

With the rise of telehealth and remote diagnostics, Jeffrey saw an opportunity to provide cardiology care to patients without the need for physical offices.

Heartbeat Health was born with a simple but powerful mission: to provide virtual cardiology care to populations that most needed it. The company’s model focuses on selling these services to provider groups that manage large populations with cardiovascular risks.

The Heartbeat Health Business Model

Heartbeat Health has a complete medical group: cardiologists, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, care coordinators, and medical assistants (their Heart Heroes). As in any division of cardiology, these professionals practice and care for patients.

The main exception is that their services are provided without a brick-and-mortar footprint. It’s essentially a roving cardiology group that works with populations that need cardiology care but doesn’t bring them into an office.

Heartbeat uses telehealth and remote diagnostics to actually care for its members and patients. Its business model has been evolving over the years. It now also sells this facility and service to provider groups bearing the risk of cardiovascular patients.

As Jeffrey explains, in any large population, heart disease and heart issues are probably the number one or two drivers of patient problems, comorbidities, and costs. Managing these is a huge priority for any group of providers managing these patients.

With cardiologists often understaffed and overburdened, Heartbeat’s virtual model provided much-needed relief by remotely offering high-quality, scalable care. As Jeffrey puts it, “We bring the care to you, instead of having to hire a whole new set of cardiologists for your group.”

Navigating the Entrepreneurial Rollercoaster

Starting a business is never easy, and Jeffrey’s journey with Heartbeat Health was no exception. Every step was a steep learning curve, from the early stages of pitching to investors to learning the fundamentals of entrepreneurship.

One of the most challenging decisions Jeffrey faced was when the company started running two different businesses simultaneously: a platform for cardiology and a service-based model delivering cardiovascular care.

This dual focus was costly and unsustainable. Ultimately, the company decided to shutter its platform commercialization efforts and focus solely on its services, which proved to be the right move. Jeffrey chose to use the platform as a backend for higher efficiency and scalability.

As Jeffrey explains, they transitioned from D2C to B2B sales. The objective was to add real value to the cardiology sphere and see patients who needed services instead of patients who wanted to sign up for a new healthcare trend.

Heartbeat Health began selling to Medicare, collecting evidence and data on everything it did to understand the value it created. Soon, it improved outcomes and reduced hospitalization rates, providing exceptional patient satisfaction.

Restructuring Strategies and Resilience

“Not everything has been roses and sunshine,” Jeffrey admits. The restructuring process took months, but the results have paid off. Heartbeat Health is now streamlined, and the company’s focus on delivering care has allowed it to scale efficiently.

This entrepreneurial journey has also taught Jeffrey valuable lessons about resilience. “Being a founder can be very isolating,” he says, emphasizing the importance of a robust support system that does not include board members or investors who may have conflicting perspectives.

Founders often face an emotional rollercoaster—one moment, everything seems to be on fire, and the next, everything feels like it’s falling into place. His advice? Celebrate the wins and keep pushing forward. “You wouldn’t be on this journey if you didn’t have enough wins to sustain it.”

Fundraising: Turning Ideas into Reality

Capital is essential for growth in a healthcare startup, and Heartbeat Health has raised over $65M to date. Jeffrey’s approach to pitching his ideas and fundraising is unique—he genuinely enjoys it. Presenting financial opportunities to capital partners was an exciting experience.

Storytelling is everything, and Jeffrey Wessler was able to master it. The key is being able to capture the essence of what you are doing in 15 to 20 slides. For a winning deck, take a look at the pitch deck template created by Silicon Valley legend Peter Thiel (see it here), where the most critical slides are highlighted.

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As a clinician, Jeffrey found it rewarding to convince smart investors to dedicate capital to healthcare, a field he believes has unparalleled societal value.

However, as the company has grown, so has the complexity of fundraising. The recent Series C round, led by Cressey & Company in Chicago, raised a significant sum, even amidst challenging capital markets.

Other investors include 406 Ventures, Echo Health Ventures, Optum Ventures, and Kindred Ventures, to name a few, who have been with the company for a long term.

Aside from capital, these investors have assisted with expertise in conducting successful financing, which Jeffrey appreciates.

“We were a moving target,” Jeffrey explains, referring to how their growth trajectory shifted during fundraising. Staying ahead of those changes required long nights and intense preparation to ensure the business’s financial forecasts aligned with investor expectations.

Heartbeat’s progress has been impressive despite market headwinds. The indicators of success affirmed to him that Heartbeat was on the right path—both financially and in terms of impact.

The Future Vision for Heartbeat Health and Advice for Aspiring Founders

Looking ahead, Jeffrey’s vision for Heartbeat Health is ambitious yet grounded. In his ideal future, every patient in the US who needs cardiology care could access it within a day or two, drastically improving clinical outcomes across cardiovascular diseases.

“Our care works. If we can get it to people on time, in the right place, then the outcomes will present themselves,” he says.

Jeffrey’s key advice for aspiring entrepreneurs is to surround themselves with exceptional people. In the early stages, it’s easy to be wooed by promises, but building a company requires like-minded individuals who are aligned with your vision.

This lesson has guided Jeffrey through the highs and lows of his entrepreneurial journey. He considers himself fortunate to have great co-founders, employees, and early groups that helped him think things through and accelerate some parts of the company.

Jeffrey also believes in being patient and learning from the market and what it wants. He expects to dive into building companies in healthcare and tech-enabled services, assuming that it will be a long journey, up to 20 years. Nothing can happen faster.

As Jeffrey notes, company life cycles tend to change every 18 to 24 months, and as the founder and CEO of Heartbeat Health, he has been evolving to keep pace with its growth. Going into things with a learner’s mindset and personal reflection has helped him step up his maturity as a leader.

Jeffrey has been interacting with a strong leadership group of learners and co-pilots and learning about many aspects of running a company, such as finance, operations, product development, and more.

In Conclusion

Jeffrey Wessler’s story is one of dedication—to medicine, innovation, and making a lasting impact on the world. His eight-year journey from cardiologist to founder of Heartbeat Health is an inspiring example of how entrepreneurship can bridge the gap between cutting-edge medical science and the millions of patients who need access to it.

Listen to the full podcast episode to know more, including:

• Jeffrey Wessler identified a major gap between advanced healthcare in top institutions and most patients’ lack of access to it.
• Heartbeat Health was founded on the desire to bring high-quality cardiology care to millions via telehealth and remote diagnostics.
• The company’s growth accelerated when it shifted from direct-to-consumer to a B2B model, focusing on underserved cardiovascular patients.
• Jeffrey’s ability to raise $65M in capital was rooted in his belief in healthcare’s value and his company’s strong market performance.
• Heartbeat faced a crucial decision to consolidate its focus on cardiology services, streamlining its business and ensuring its long-term viability.
• Transitioning from medicine to entrepreneurship involved a steep learning curve, but it ultimately fueled Wessler’s passion and growth.
• Founders need a strong support network to weather entrepreneurship’s ups and downs and stay grounded through challenges.

 

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