Daniel Rifkin has a pitch that sounds almost too simple: sleep apnea affects millions of Americans, most of whom never get diagnosed, and when they do, the traditional pathway—waiting weeks for an in-person sleep study, then navigating CPAP machines and insurance hurdles—loses patients at every step.
His answer? Build it all online.
Ognomy Sleep, the virtual care platform Rifkin founded, closed a $20 million Series A round on June 30, 2026, led by Catalyst Investors with participation from Blue Heron Capital. A roster of existing backers came along for the ride: Impellent Ventures, Launch NY, Excell, Upstate Biotech Ventures, and the University at Buffalo Innovation Seed Fund, plus a handful of undisclosed strategic partners. Kapil Desai from Catalyst will join Ognomy's board.
The company has now delivered more than 85,000 virtual visits across all 50 states, according to its announcement, boasting a Net Promoter Score north of 80 and claiming it onboards patients nine times faster than conventional sleep medicine channels. Perhaps more significantly for its ambitions, Ognomy is in-network for 200 million-plus Americans—a credential that matters when you're trying to scale in a healthcare market where reimbursement can make or break a digital health venture.
What sets Ognomy apart, according to the company, is its therapy-agnostic approach. The platform isn't wedded to any single treatment modality. Instead, it offers FDA-cleared home sleep tests, telehealth diagnosis, CPAP therapy, oral appliances, and—in a sign of how the landscape is shifting—prescriptions for GLP-1 medications like Zepbound for qualifying patients. The company also coordinates with Inspire's implantable therapy for cases that need it.
That pharmacologic piece is newer terrain. The FDA approved Zepbound (tirzepatide) on December 20, 2024 as the first medication for moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnea in adults with obesity, opening a door that didn't exist a few years ago. Ognomy folded Zepbound prescribing into its platform and now handles prior authorization support—a detail that might sound minor but often determines whether patients actually access treatment.
"This investment allows us to continue building the infrastructure to serve sleep apnea patients at scale while staying therapy-agnostic," Rifkin, who holds an MD and MPH, said in the company's statement. It's a claim that hints at a broader ambition: positioning Ognomy not just as a sleep apnea provider but as a piece of the larger cardiometabolic care puzzle, where sleep, weight, and cardiovascular health increasingly overlap.
The fresh capital will fuel expansion of Ognomy's AI-enabled clinical platform and deeper integrations with wearable devices. Support for Oura ring data is on the roadmap. The company is also building out what it calls a nationwide virtual sleep medicine network, threading together partnerships and provider capacity in a market where an estimated 80% of sleep apnea cases still go undiagnosed.
Ognomy's fundraising history reflects the slow-then-fast trajectory common among healthcare startups navigating regulatory pathways. The company raised more than $6.8 million by August 2024, led by Impellent Ventures. Earlier backing included a seed investment from publicly traded Inspire Medical Systems (NYSE: INSP) in April 2022—an interesting tie given that Inspire makes the implantable devices Ognomy coordinates for some patients. The company also drew $100,000 from the University at Buffalo Innovation Seed Fund in February 2026.
Recognition has followed the capital. Ognomy was named "Best Overall SleepTech Solution" by MedTech Breakthrough in May 2026, the kind of accolade that helps in a crowded digital health field where differentiation isn't always obvious to payers or patients.
What comes next is execution at scale. Virtual care platforms often struggle to move beyond early adopters, and sleep medicine—with its patchwork of therapies, insurance complexities, and patient adherence challenges—offers plenty of friction points. Rifkin's bet is that by meeting patients where they are and offering multiple pathways rather than a one-size-fits-all solution, Ognomy can crack a market that's been notoriously difficult to serve well.
Whether that thesis holds at scale remains to be seen. But with $20 million in new backing and a growing network already spanning all 50 states, the company has room to find out.
