Ro co-founder and CEO Zachariah Reitano said he would “never say never” about potentially taking the seven-year-old telehealth company public, but he believes the benefits of being a private company are growing.
Reitano dodged several questions from Axios reporter Dan Primack at Axios’ BFD event on Oct. 22 about whether the company plans to IPO in the near term or in general.
“We may give you an unsatisfactory answer, but the truth is that right now we are solely focused on providing the highest quality products to our patients,” Reitano said.
Ro has raised over $1 billion in venture capital from General Catalyst, Initialized Capital, Torch Capital, and others. Ro most 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 remain private, according to PitchBook data. Another factor keeping companies private is the emergence of secondary markets as an increasingly common way to provide liquidity to investors and employees. Although most activity is centered around a small number of companies.
He also talked about the company’s big “uncomfortable bet” on a weight-loss drug launching 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 into more men’s and women’s health categories, including hair growth, fertility and skin health. However, it is now well known as a provider of several GLP-1 options.
Reitano said the company began developing a program to offer such drugs in 2021 and shifted a significant portion of its resources to that category at that time. It is now one of the fastest growing segments of the business.
“Providers want patients to have it, and patients desperately want it. “This has never happened before in any drug category, so from our perspective, the diffusion and widespread use of GLP-1 is inevitable,” Reitano said.
He added that the company’s expansion at the time was natural because conditions like obesity impact many of the other health categories the company focuses on, including fertility and sexual health conditions like erectile dysfunction.
