Today in the Connected Economy: Amazon Invests $4B to Expand Healthcare

Today in the connected economy, Amazon acquires primary care provider One Medical in an effort to expand its healthcare offerings.

Meanwhile, Uber announces an expansion to its grocery delivery services, and Arvest Bank launches a partnership with Google Cloud.

Amazon to Buy One Medical for $3.9B to Expand Healthcare Offerings

Amazon is hoping to expand its healthcare offerings by acquiring tech-powered primary care provider One Medical.

The retail goliath says it will acquire One Medical for $18 per share in an all-cash transaction worth about $3.9 billion, including One Medical’s net debt. As part of the sale, Amir Dan Rubin will stay on as One Medical’s chief executive officer.

“The opportunity to transform healthcare and improve outcomes by combining One Medical’s human-centered and technology-powered model and exceptional team with Amazon’s customer obsession, history of invention and willingness to invest in the long-term is so exciting,” Rubin said in a press release. “There is an immense opportunity to make the healthcare experience more accessible, affordable, and even enjoyable for patients, providers and payers.”

Uber Eats Boosts Grocery Delivery With Off-Hours Shopping

With restaurant aggregators looking to drive more value from their driver networks and outperform rivals, many are turning to grocery delivery.

Among them is Uber, which has launched a “new grocery experience” including new capabilities for consumers and merchants, including the option for consumers to order groceries outside of store hours to help them integrate online grocery shopping into their daily routines.

“My experience over the past few years has started to make me … ask why it is that, in the past, the paradigms we’re stuck with in terms of being able to for example, shop for groceries, always involve a constraint instead of a possibility,” Therese Lim, senior director of new verticals and grocery product at Uber, said during a Zoom presentation.

Arvest Bank Partners With Google Cloud on Digital Transformation

Community bank Arvest Bank has launched a five-year partnership with Google Cloud to speed its digital transformation.

Arvest says it aims to revamp its technology architecture and systems and will move its data centers to Google Cloud for a “full scale” digital transformation. The bank also plans to employ Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning tools to improve customer service.

“The rapid shifts around consumer financial needs and behaviors, along with the expectation for consistent customer engagement across channels, impose unprecedented demands for technology and speed of execution,” said Arvest CEO Kevin Sabin. “Moving to the cloud is another key component to our transformation.”

Scrypt, Finexio Team to Streamline AP Process

Payables automation provider Scrypt says it has formed a partnership with Finexio, a digital accounts payable-as-a-service company.

The company says this collaboration creates a solution that joins Scrypt’s AI-driven payables platform to Finexio’s cloud-based B2B payments infrastructure.

“By simulating human thinking, Scrypt can read any document or image, then learn, discover and perform judgment-based tasks on its own,” according to the release. “Through the Finexio partnership, Scrypt customers will now have access to Finexio’s … payment offerings, creating a completely streamlined and autonomous [accounts payable] payments process.”

GoCardless to Provide Payment Solutions to Xero Customers in the UK

Digital payment solution GoCardless is working with Xero, a global small business platform, to provide its Instant Bank Pay feature to Xero’s U.K. customers.

Instant Bank Pay, an open banking feature of the GoCardless global payment platform, will let Xero users receive one-off bank-to-bank payments from new and existing customers.

GoCardless said Instant Bank Pay supports all businesses, including ones with recurring revenue models. The company also pointed to in-house research, which found that 85% of recurring revenue businesses need to collect one-off payments, such as a supplementary fee during tax season.