Analysis
Corrected Sep 30, 2026: an earlier version presented the $1.75 billion valuation and ~$281 million total as part of Rightway's announcement, which states neither; Bloomberg reported both on Sep 24, the valuation citing a person familiar with the matter and the total per the company.
Rightway, the pharmacy-benefit management and care-navigation startup co-founded by CEO Jordan Feldman, raised $155 million in Series E funding led by Francisco Partners, with existing backers Thrive Capital and Khosla Ventures participating, according to PR Newswire.
Bloomberg reported that the round values the New York-based company at $1.75 billion, citing a person familiar with the matter, and Rightway says it has raised $281 million since its 2017 founding.
“prescription claims, according to MobiHealthNews.”
Taking Aim At A Concentrated Market
Rightway's pitch is framed explicitly as an alternative to the "Big Three" pharmacy benefit managers -- CVS Caremark, Cigna's Express Scripts, and UnitedHealth's Optum Rx -- which together process the large majority of U.S. prescription claims, according to MobiHealthNews. The incumbents' model relies heavily on rebates negotiated with drug manufacturers, an arrangement the FTC has scrutinized in multiple reports for creating an incentive to favor higher-list-price drugs. Rightway says its aligned financial model removes that incentive entirely, pairing it with pharmacists who guide members toward the lowest-cost appropriate medication.
The Traction Behind The Valuation
The company counts 45 Fortune 500 employers as clients, a real signal in a category where large employers rarely rip out benefits infrastructure once it's embedded and where PBM contracts typically run multi-year cycles. That client base, more than the round size itself, is what supports a reported $1.75 billion mark for a company that's raised a comparatively modest $281 million total. Care-navigation companies such as Included Health and Transcarent compete for the same employer benefits budgets.
What The Money Is For
Rightway says the capital will expand its AI capabilities across the pharmacy-benefits stack, not a new product category so much as faster, cheaper execution of the clinical navigation it already does. That's a meaningful distinction from AI-native health startups pitching net-new capabilities: Rightway is using AI to scale a proven service model rather than to justify the round.
The Risk In The Thesis
The real risk is regulatory and competitive, not financial. PBM reform has been a bipartisan talking point in Washington for years without producing legislation that structurally breaks the incumbents' market power, and the Big Three's scale advantage in rebate negotiation is hard for any challenger to match on price alone. Rightway's bet is that transparency and clinical navigation win enough enterprise clients before the PBM giants out-compete on price or acquire their way around the threat -- a bet that has worked so far, but one that gets harder to sustain the larger Rightway gets.
