Mario Schlosser is the CEO and co-founder of Oscar, a health-insurance start-up that uses technology, design, and data to help humanize and simplify healthcare.
Early life and education
Mario Schlosser attended the University of Trier from October 1997 – March 1998, in Trier Germany. Schlosser graduated a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Hannover in Hannover, Germany in 2003, and also an M.B.A. graduate from Harvard Business School in 2007.
Career
Schlosser worked as a Fellow Senior Associate for McKinsey & Company in Europe, the U.S. and Brazil from October 2002 – July 2005. In 2007, Schlosser with Daniel Kafie and Joshua Kushner also co-founded Vostu, the largest social gaming company in Brazil and Latin America. The once-booming start-up Vostu, replete with copious whiteboards, scooters, and cafeteria, was overthrown by a copyright violation law by gaming company Zynga, which Schlosser claims were slanderous, but it was resolved with a monetary payment to Zynga. Employee moral soured and the board ousted Schlosser in 2012.
Oscar Health
On November 1, 2012, Mario Schlosser, Josh Kushner, and Kevin Nazemi, who were classmates at Harvard Business School, founded Oscar Health. It is a technology-focused health insurance company. It concentrates on the health insurance industry through healthcare focused technological interfaces, telemedicine, and transparent claims pricing systems. After interacting with a complicated hospital billing system in 2012, Schlosser and Kushner were inspired to establish their own company. They named the company after Kushner’s great-grandfather, Oscar. The company began marketing insurance for the same year the Affordable Care Act exchanges and individual order passed into effect for the 2014 plan year. Oscar acquired 16,000 members in its first year. Oscar expanded coverage to New Jersey and grew to about 40,000 members in 2015.
Oscar had 145,000 members in California, New York, New Jersey, and Texas in 2016. The company grew its operation in August 2016 to Tempe, Arizona, where it decided to settle its Concierge teams, the name for their member services model. Oscar declared on August 23, 2016, that it would be exiting the New Jersey Marketplace at the end of 2016, indicating possibilities in the market that would make it exciting to perform efficiently and continue to deliver access to quality healthcare. The company also announced that it would divide the size of its provider network in New York amidst rising premiums in order to achieve more control over patient experience and pricing.
Oscar initiated the Oscar Health in November 2016, in partnership with Mount Sinai Health System. The Oscar Center is located next to the Jay Street-MetroTech station in Brooklyn Heights. Oscar Center has a principal care practice with a doctor, a behavioral health specialist, and a nurse practitioner and only Oscar members can avail it. It also extends free classes for its members, such as classes for expectant mothers or yoga classes.
Oscar declared its entrance on April 25, 2017, into the small group insurance market, proposing health plans in New York. Oscar announced its partnership on June 15, 2017, with Cleveland Clinic to extend individual health insurance plans to purchasers in five counties in Northeastern Ohio. On June 21, 2017, Oscar announced its plan to increase additional markets in 2018 in areas of California, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas. The company stated that they would be marketing insurance to companies with up to 50 employees in the Nashville metro area, through a strategic partnership with Humana on July 12, 2017.
Oscar markets individual health insurance plans, both directly and through health insurance marketplaces in California, New York, and Texas. Schlosser is the company’s CEO, after attending as Co-CEO with Nazemi until the latter’s departure in early 2015. Kushner continues a significant shareholder, although he does not carry a formal part in Oscar’s daily service, and Schlosser verified he has notable input in various aspects of the company like hiring, marketing, and strategy.
Funding
Oscar has boosted capital through a series of funding rounds. Oscar’s investors include CapitalG, Fidelity Investments, General Catalyst Partners, Khosla Ventures, and Thrive Capital. During its Series A round in May 2014, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund directed the series funding $30 million. Forbes proclaimed the valuation of the company at $800 million by the end of Series A.
Oscar Health increased $145 million, throughout the Series B round in 2015, producing the total capital increased to $300 million, thus valuing the company at $1.5 billion. The Series B investors included Formation 8, Goldman Sachs, Horizon Ventures, and Wellington Management Company. Oscar stated funding round in September 2015, with Google Capital and Google Ventures, valuing the company at $1.75 billion. Oscar produced $400 million in their Series C round, led by Fidelity Investments in 2016, with secondary participation from previous investors, with a reported valuation of $2.7 billion.
Revenue
The New York magazine reported that as of May 2014, Oscar Health had 16,000 subscribers registered in its insurance program producing an expected $72 million. Forbes reported that the company had 40,000 subscribers with an average subscriber spending annual fees of $4,500, placing Oscar Health’s income estimates at $180 million in 2015. Vox reported that the company lost $92.4 million in 2015, in New York as the firm’s analytical models failed to correctly forecast the people who signed up for coverage were sicker than the company had anticipated.
By 2016, Oscar had 135, 000 subscribers with roughly half living in New York State. Bloomberg reported in February 2017 that Oscar Health had lost $204.9 million in 2016. In May 2017, Bloomberg reported that Oscar’s first-quarter loss had narrowed by almost half, recording that the company was starting to get a grip on its medical costs. In August 2017, Bloomberg reported that for the first half of the year, the Oscar had loss $57.6 million, down from the $83 million lost posted the year prior.
Employees
Nazemi left the Oscar leadership in 2015, and Schlosser took over as sole CEO. At early 2016, Oscar selected Brian West, a former COO, and CFO at Nielsen, as Chief Financial Officer and Joel Klein, Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education and a former Assistant Attorney General, as Chief Policy and Strategy Officer.
Sara Rowghani, a vice president of Marketing at Kickstarter and a former GM of Google UXA, joined the team as VP of Marketing in March 2016. In the same year, Bloomberg News reported technology chief Fredrik Nylander’s departure in June was to be appointed by Alan Warren from Google. Anne Espiritu, former VP of Global PR and Comms at Yahoo!, joined as VP of Communications and Corporate Social Responsibility in August 2016. In October 2016, a former Chief People Officer at Jet.com, Deena Gianoncelli, joined as Chief People Officer at Oscar. In August 2017, a former chief medical officer at Advisory Board Co., Dennis Weaver, was hired as the Chief Clinical Officer for Oscar.