Hello Patient, a conversational AI company, has raised $22.5 million in Series A funding, which it will use to scale to more healthcare organizations and grow its product, it announced on Thursday.
The Austin, Texas-based startup integrates with practice management and electronic health record systems. It offers autonomous voice and SMS agents to answer patient calls and texts, schedule appointments, triage patients and follow up on care. It works in urgent care, primary care, mental health, vet care, medspas and more. The company’s clients include Revive Med Spa and Octave Health.
“The front door of healthcare is broken. Across the U.S., patient calls and texts go unanswered due to staff shortages and overwhelmed call centers. This leads to missed appointments, delayed care, and lost revenue. Every minute staff spend on the phone is time away from patients in the clinic. We’re solving that by automating patient communications and improving access for patients while reducing the burden on staff,” said Alex Cohen, CEO and founder of Hello Patient, in an email. Cohen previously led consumer product and growth at Carbon Health, a primary and urgent care provider.
The Series A round was led by Scale Venture Partners and included participation from 8VC, Bling Capital, Max Ventures, Remus Capital and FirstLook Partners. In total, Hello Patient has raised $30.2 million.
“We look for companies solving real operational bottlenecks in healthcare, and Hello Patient is tackling one of the biggest—the communication challenges between patients and providers,” said Jeremy Kaufmann, partner at Scale Venture Partners, in a statement. “Hello Patient stands out as the category-defining patient engagement platform, with an experienced team and early customer traction that prove AI can fix the access gap in healthcare.”
The financing will be used to scale its product by “expanding integrations across major practice management systems and strengthening compliance/safety,” Cohen said. Hello Patient is also investing in its go-to-market strategy by growing enterprise sales and onboarding capacity. Lastly, it’s hiring across engineering, marketing and other departments, Cohen added.
“Our immediate goal is just scaling to support the overwhelming demand we’ve had from practice groups,” he said.
The financing comes at a time when about 42% of patient calls and texts are unanswered during busy hours, according to Hello Patient’s announcement. This is due to staffing shortages and administrative burden at call centers.
Conversational AI has emerged as a top area of interest for healthcare venture capitalists. Other conversational AI companies include Abridge, Fabric Health and Hyro.ai.
Photo: Guido Mieth, Getty Images
