Healthcare AI Guy Weekly | 5/20

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Our Picks ✨

Highlights if you’ve only got 2 minutes…

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Unicorn founders in the age of AI

What does it take to build the next generation of health tech unicorns? SignalFire analyzed over 300 health tech unicorn founders to understand what drives billion-dollar success and how AI is reshaping the trajectory. Today’s top founders tend to be seasoned operators with advanced degrees, but the next generation will need “bilingual fluency” in both healthcare and AI. Thanks to AI, smaller teams (even solo founders) are now scaling faster than ever. Historically, it took more than five years to hit $30M in ARR. Now, AI-native startups are reaching that milestone in under two.

Market sizes are also expanding. Hospitals spent an average of $9.5M on IT in 2023, and as AI replaces labor-heavy workflows, those labor budgets are being reallocated to AI. That shift is unlocking entirely new markets and creating opportunities for unicorns that weren’t possible before. That said, the future belongs to those who can speak both the language of medicine and machine learning. (link)

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New Mountain Capital launches AI RCM platform

New Mountain Capital has launched Smarter Technologies, an AI-driven revenue cycle management (RCM) platform formed by combining Access Healthcare (RCM services), SmarterDx (clinical AI for revenue integrity), and Thoughtful.ai (agentic automation tools). The platform now supports 200+ clients, including 60+ hospitals and 500K+ providers, and manages over $200B in revenue across 400M transactions annually. CEO Jeremy Delinsky (formerly of athenahealth and Devoted Health) believes AI agents can now catch billing issues in real time, reducing denials, delays, and patient frustration.

Smarter’s core tools include Nebula, which automates up to 70% of RCM tasks using virtual agents, and Overwatch, a global operations engine built for scale and quality. The platform combines AI agents, human-in-the-loop support, and clinically driven billing algorithms to address soaring administrative costs. While it's still early days, Smarter is betting big that modular, agentic AI can help fix the messier corners of U.S. healthcare billing. New Mountain Capital is taking big swings in healthcare and this one looks like a winner. (link)(tweet)(linkedin)

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AI for VBC

New research from Phyx Primary Care suggests AI assistants could be a game-changer for primary care practices navigating value-based care (VBC). In a study of 120 physicians using Navina’s AI assistant, practices saw a 40% drop in clinical review time and a 32% decrease in burnout, both key wins in a model that often overwhelms providers with documentation and reporting demands. The AI helped surface insights, flag diagnoses, and streamline chart reviews, contributing to a measurable bump in performance (+0.153 RAF, +1.9 Star rating). While the study had limitations, including no control group and self-reported data, the takeaway is clear: for practices juggling multiple VBC contracts, AI might not just be helpful, it may be essential to thrive. (link)

Tools & Partnerships 🔧

Latest on business, consumer, and clinical healthcare AI tools and partnerships…

TOOLS

• AI predicts cancer outcomes from facial photos: Mass General Brigham researchers introduced FaceAge, an AI tool that estimates biological age from facial photos to improve cancer survival predictions. Adding FaceAge scores to clinical data helped doctors more accurately predict 6-month survival. (link)

• Mayo Clinic radiology leads systemwide AI adoption with 250+ models: Mayo Clinic’s radiology team uses AI to enhance imaging, analyze tissue, and predict disease, with over 250 models deployed. Since 2016, the department grew its radiologist staff by 55% alongside forming a 40-member AI group. (link)

• Iodine Software launches AI tool to catch post-discharge revenue leakage: Iodine unveiled AwarePre-Bill, an AI auditing tool that flags missing documentation and billing code gaps after discharge. The company says it can help health systems recover $3M-$4M monthly in missed revenue while easing billing-related admin burdens. (link)

• Pathway adds drug reference and interaction checker to its medical AI platform: Clinicians can now access medication data and screen for drug interactions within Pathway’s AI platform, streamlining access to info on 2,000+ drugs in real time. (link)

• Intelligent Internet debuts II-Medical-9B, a lightweight model for local medical AI: The 9B-parameter model offers GPT-4.5-level performance for medical tasks while running locally, cutting inference costs to zero. (link)

• Meta releases Open Molecules 2025 and Universal Model for Atoms: Meta shared a new dataset, a universal model for atomic interactions, and research on language development, expanding its science AI research portfolio. (link)

• AKASA launches CDI Optimizer to flag inpatient documentation gaps: AKASA’s new AI tool reviews 100% of inpatient encounters to identify missing documentation and prioritize improvements, aiming to boost coding accuracy and revenue capture. (link)

• Gyan AI launches as a rule-based research tool for healthcare and life sciences: Gyan, a new enterprise AI tool, is designed to support document review and analysis without generating content outside approved sources. Unlike typical LLMs, it uses language rules rather than pretrained data, aiming to reduce hallucinations and improve traceability in regulated environments. (link)

PARTNERSHIPS

• Oracle Health + Cleveland Clinic + G42: The trio is partnering to build an AI-powered healthcare platform combining Oracle’s cloud, Cleveland Clinic’s clinical expertise, and G42’s AI and data capabilities to advance precision medicine and public health in the U.S. and UAE. (link)

• The Joint Commission + Palantir: The two organizations are partnering to enhance how benchmarking data is collected and applied to improve clinical outcomes across accredited healthcare institutions. (link)

• Synchron + Apple: Synchron’s brain-computer interface will enable users to control Apple devices—including iPhone and Vision Pro—using only their thoughts, without movement or voice. (link)

• Mercy + Axuall + Microsoft + Mayo Clinic: Mercy is partnering with Axuall, Microsoft, and Mayo Clinic to create a unified, AI-enhanced provider data platform, accelerating physician onboarding from 120+ days to a target of 90 days while streamlining credentialing and privileging. (link)

• Hippocratic AI + EUCALIA: Hippocratic AI is partnering with EUCALIA to bring its generative AI healthcare agents to Japan, supporting clinicians by handling non-diagnostic, patient-facing tasks. (link)

• Dayton Children’s + Abridge: Dayton Children’s is adopting Abridge’s ambient AI to auto-generate clinical notes from visit transcripts, becoming one of the first pediatric systems to deploy the technology. (link)

• Redox + IntelePeer: Redox is teaming up with IntelePeer to give conversational AI agents access to EHR and practice management data, enabling more intelligent and connected contact center experiences. (link)

• GI Alliance + IKS Health: GI Alliance is adopting IKS Health’s AI-enabled RCM and clinical operations platform to streamline care delivery and revenue processes across its network. (link)

• Insight Health + Office Practicum: A white-labeled version of Insight Health’s AI scribe is now integrated into Office Practicum’s pediatric EHR, enhancing documentation for pediatric practices. (link)

• Cardiac Care Alliance + Cleerly: The value-based cardiac care network is integrating Cleerly’s AI imaging platform to support clinical decision-making across its provider ecosystem. (link)

Deal Desk 💸 

Spotlight on latest capital raises, M&A, and investments…

FUNDING

• Pathos AI, a Chicago-based biotech focused on solid tumor drugs, raised $365M in Series D funding from undisclosed backers at a $1.6B valuation. Prior backers include NEA, Revolution, Lightbank, and Builders VC.

• Cohere Health, an AI prior auth platform, raised a $90M Series C ($200M total) led by Temasek with continued support from Deerfield Management, Define Ventures, Flare Capital Partners, Longitude Capital, and Polaris Partners. (link)

• Akido Labs, developer of an AI assistant for doctors, raised $60M in Series B funding. Oak HC/FT led, joined by Greco, SNR, YC, Future Communities Capital, Jeff Dean, and the Comprehensive Blood & Cancer Center. (link)

• PhaseV, a clinical trial and development software startup, raised $50M in Series A funding. Accel and Insight Partners co-led, joined by existing investors Viola Ventures, EXOR, and LionBird. (link)

• Somite AI, a company leveraging foundation models and AI to accelerate human cell therapy development, closed its Series A funding round, raising more than $47M. The round was led by Khosla Ventures. (link)

• SpotitEarly, a biotech startup that uses AI and dogs to detect cancer using an at-home test, announced its launch into the U.S. market with $20.3M in funding. The company has received funding from Menomedin VC and others. (link)

• Olio, an Indianapolis-based care coordination platform, raised $11M in Series B funding. Fulcrum Equity Partners led, joined by Mutual Capital Partners. (link)

• Intrepid Labs, a Toronto-based AI-powered drug formulation company, raised $11M in funding. AVANT BIO led the $7M seed round and was joined by existing investor Radical Ventures. Radical Ventures led the $4M pre-seed round and was joined by Propagator Ventures. (link)

• Pluto Bio, a Denver-based computational biology startup, raised $3.6M from Kickstart and Silverton Partners. (link)

• Mentaily, a Ramat Gan, Israel-based AI-powered mental health diagnosis tools developer, raised $3M in seed funding. A U.S.-based family office and Israeli family offices led the round. (link)

Other Relevant News 🔍

News, podcasts, blogs, tweets, resources, etc…

• Rev cycle AI tools are delivering measurable ROI (link)

• Toolkit for AI governance by Manatt and AMA (link)

• GOP floats 10-year AI regulation freeze: 6 things to know (link)

• UnitedHealth Group stock imploding and CEO steps down (link)

• The first VC hospital deal faces scrutiny from the government and public (link)

• Determinants of AI acceptance among healthcare workers (link)

Visuals of the Week 📸

Funny memes, cool pics, and interesting data from around the web…