Forward

HealthtechUSA

New to Unitard

💀 Dead / Bankrupt

Peak $1 BillionToday

~-100%

from peak

🦄
Became a unicorn
2023
📈
Peak valuation
$1 Billion ’23
💔
Became a Unitard
Nov 2024
💸
Last valuation
Wiped out

Capital raised

$657M

Total raised

$215K/day

Raised per day

Total raised averaged per day over approximately 8.4 years from founding to bankruptcy or shutdown. This is not measured cash burn. Methodology

Funding: TechCrunch/eMarketer

Current status

Shut down (November 2024) after burning through ~$650M; all locations closed

The rise & fall

6 moments · 2016–2024

The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.

2016

Founded by ex-Google and Uber executives

The pitch: rebuild the doctor's office as a tech product.

TechCrunch

2023

The peak: a $1B Series E to bet it all on CarePods$1B

Roughly $650M raised in total; the future is a self-service, AI-powered doctor's office in a mall kiosk.

TechCrunch

2024

The kiosks nobody visits

CarePods draw little interest from shoppers, and the mall bet doesn't pay.

Fierce Healthcare

2022–24

From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2022–24

Glassdoor reviews caught the pitch-versus-reality gap: mall staff steering shoppers toward clinics with barely any foot traffic, scribes working years as $17-an-hour contractors. Staff said the end came as a late-night email — roughly 200 people locked out, weeks before the holidays.

Nov 2024

Abrupt shutdown — joins the Unitard Club 💔

Every location closes at once, ~$650M burned — one year after the $1B round.

Fierce Healthcare

$1Bof peak value erased · 8 years

💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.

How it happened

Forward was a tech-enabled primary-care startup from ex-Google and Uber executives that raised about $650M, hit a $1B valuation in 2023, and bet heavily on CarePods — self-service AI kiosks meant to screen patients in malls. The kiosks drew little interest, and in November 2024 the company abruptly shut down. By staff accounts the end came as a late-night Tuesday email — roughly 200 people locked out without warning, weeks before the holidays.

Source: Fierce Healthcare / TechStartups / eMarketer (tech-enabled primary-care startup; raised ~$650M VC and hit a ~$1B valuation in a 2023 Series E; CarePods AI kiosks flopped; abruptly shut all clinics and ceased operations Nov 2024)