On the TechTO stage ×2
Jane Wang of MyOptimity demos her new app, Dooo
Watch on YouTube ↗Meet Jane Wang & Optimity
Watch on YouTube ↗First seen on a TechTO stage in 2015. Every TechTO talk is searchable — ask the archive about Jane ↗
In their words
We basically make a product that inserts fun little breaks in your workday to improve your daily workflow — not only to make you smile a little, but also to improve your health profile.
All these things that I thought were super helpful for thousands of patients across the world — completely useless in my own backyard. I can't get her on anything. And she was gone, and she was 52 at the time.
At the beginning everyone looks like a competitor, but the deeper you go into it, healthcare is so vast — we occupy a specific layer, and for us it's about doing that layer better and more efficiently.
Around the web ×1
Quick answers
What does Optimity do?
Optimity is a Toronto-based insurtech and wellness platform that uses gamification, micro-learning, and behavior nudges to reward healthy habits like walking — all carrot, no stick. It syncs with over 100 wearables, holds over 11 billion data points, works with insurers and reinsurers, and serves about 7 million members across its B2B and consumer business.
Why did Jane Wang leave pharma to found a startup?
She spent years running global clinical trials (HIV, ovarian cancer, MS, Alzheimer's), and her McGill ovarian-cancer team's risk-score screening — the Dove program — helped women catch stage-one cancer. Then her own mother was diagnosed with leukemia and died six months later at 52. She got an MBA as an excuse to quit, studied in the Bay Area, and a $25K check from a pitch event — before she had even incorporated — started her company.
How did Optimity reach millions of users?
Its first clients were PwC and Microsoft; Optimity officially started in 2017 and launched pilots with six insurers by 2019. When the wellness app Carrot Rewards went under in December 2019, Optimity bought its assets in bankruptcy court for pennies on the dollar and quietly relaunched during COVID, coast to coast in Canada. Users jumped from about 50,000 to 200,000 overnight, passed a million within six months, and the consumer base has grown past 2 million — now bigger in the US than Canada.