Healthleap, a healthtech startup, raised $38 million in seed and Series A funding to scale its AI platform that identifies hospital patients at risk of undiagnosed illnesses. The financing includes an $8 million seed round co-led by Sequoia Capital and First Round Capital, and a $30 million Series A led by Hummingbird Ventures. The company is not disclosing its valuation.
Founded in South Africa in 2022 by siblings Jemima and Josiah Meyer, Healthleap initially developed a clinical nutrition tool for dietitians before pivoting to a broader platform.
The company now focuses on identifying patients with conditions like malnutrition or delirium that are often missed early. "A patient’s chart holds two kinds of data.
Labs, weights, and vital signs sit in structured fields, but the most telling signs sit in clinicians’ written notes: poor appetite, recent weight loss, muscle loss, trouble swallowing," said Josiah Meyer, CEO and co-founder.
Healthleap’s platform is currently deployed in over 50 hospitals, where it screens patients for conditions such as malnutrition and delirium.
The startup has also developed programs to identify aspiration pneumonia, pressure ulcers, and risk of readmission for congestive heart failure, which are undergoing further clinical validation.
The company integrates into a hospital’s electronic health record system to pull information from written notes and structured data to surface patients needing closer attention.
"Each night, we analyze every adult inpatient’s record: lab results, vital signs, weights, medications, diet orders, diagnoses, clinicians’ notes, and more," Josiah explained.
"Each morning, we write a risk score into the care team’s existing workflow with a dashboard accessible that holds additional information about the patients’ trends." Malnutrition served as a useful starting point for Healthleap, as it is a condition often undiagnosed and can impact patient recovery.
Healthleap has grown from three hospital partners to over 50 in the past year, with customers including Penn Medicine, Cedars-Sinai, and Emory Healthcare. Revenue has grown more than 10x, though specifics were not disclosed.
The startup sells three-year contracts priced by licensed bed count and uses outcome-based pricing. "We use the hard ROI that the hospital finance team validates and attributes to us as the measurable ROI," Josiah said.
Source: techcrunch
