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Health-tech startup Cityblock lands its first big client

Cityblock, a health-tech startup based in Brooklyn, has attracted high-profile investors and $23 million in funding since it was spun out from Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs in October. Last week it reached another milestone: a deal with its first big client, EmblemHealth, one of the city's largest insurers.

Cityblock uses its platform to provide medical, behavioral and social services to Medicare and Medicaid patients in urban neighborhoods that sorely lack access to care. The startup will begin working with Emblem patients this summer out of the Crown Heights medical practice of AdvantageCare Physicians, an affiliate of Emblem with 36 offices in the city and on Long Island.

Central Brooklyn is an apt starting point for Cityblock and Emblem. The area suffers from a shortage of primary-care doctors, with just 55 physicians for every 100,000 residents—about half as many as the statewide average. The result: Brooklynites who depend on Medicaid are more likely to end up in the emergency room, driving up the costs of the government health insurance program.

While Gov. Andrew Cuomo has allocated funds to expand primary care in central Brooklyn as part of a plan to consolidate three of the borough's hospitals, Cityblock offers a private-sector solution. Its investors include Maverick Ventures, a San Francisco–based venture-capital fund tied to Maverick Capital, the $10 billion hedge fund, as well as Sidewalk Labs, run by Google's parent company, and Thrive Capital, a New York venture firm founded by Joshua Kushner. Two investors know the market particularly well: Andy Slavitt, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services during the Obama administration, and his former deputy administrator, Dr. Patrick Conway.

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