Castlight Health went public having made its first customer sale only four years earlier. The San Francisco company sold software to large employers that showed their workers the price and quality of doctors, scans and procedures before they booked them. American health care hid its prices, and companies paying the bills wanted their staff to shop. In March 2014, investors were hungry for health tech and for cloud software, and Castlight was both.

A Doctor and a Price Tag

Giovanni Colella co-founded Castlight in 2008 after running RelayHealth, and he became its CEO. Bryan Roberts, a venture investor, co-founded it and chaired the board. Todd Park was the third co-founder. The company built its first product, Castlight Medical, in 2009 and closed its first sale in 2010. The bet was that big self-insured employers would pay for software that steered workers toward cheaper, better care and cut their health bills.

A Pop, Then a Long Slide

Castlight priced at $16 a share on March 14, 2014, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange under CSLT. The shares more than doubled on the first day. Growth then slowed, and the stock spent years far below its offer price. In 2017 Castlight bought the health app maker Jiff. In early 2022, Vera Whole Health bought Castlight through a tender offer, and the stock was delisted in February 2022.

Cover: Kostverloren Castle in Decay, Rembrandt van Rijn. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for an old castle on the water (Castlight).