Healthleap, a healthcare technology startup using artificial intelligence to help hospitals identify patients who may need additional clinical attention, has raised $38 million in new funding.
The funding consists of an $8 million seed round co-led by Sequoia Capital and First Round Capital, along with a $30 million Series A led by Hummingbird Ventures. Healthleap has not disclosed its valuation.
What Happened?
Healthleap was founded in South Africa in 2022 by siblings Jemima Meyer and Josiah Meyer. The company originally developed a clinical nutrition tool designed to help dietitians, but later expanded its focus to a broader healthcare platform.
Today, its technology analyzes patient records to identify signs that could indicate an undiagnosed condition or a higher risk of complications.
The platform is currently being used in more than 50 hospitals, according to the company.
How Does Healthleap’s AI Work?
Hospital records contain a large amount of information, including laboratory results, vital signs, medications, diagnoses and doctors’ notes.
Healthleap’s software combines these different sources of information. Its language models examine written clinical notes for important details that may otherwise be difficult to identify at scale, such as poor appetite, recent weight loss, muscle loss or difficulty swallowing.
The system combines those findings with structured medical information and generates a risk score for patients who may need additional attention.
The analysis is performed overnight, with the resulting information made available to care teams through their existing workflow the following day.
Importantly, Healthleap says its software does not diagnose patients. Instead, it highlights patients and clinical information that healthcare professionals may want to review more closely.
Malnutrition Was an Early Focus
Malnutrition became one of Healthleap’s initial areas of focus because it can be difficult to identify during a hospital stay and can affect a patient’s recovery.
Healthleap’s platform is designed to help hospitals find patients who may be experiencing malnutrition and bring those cases to the attention of clinical teams.
The company has also developed programs aimed at identifying risks related to delirium, aspiration pneumonia, pressure ulcers and readmission for congestive heart failure. These additional programs are still undergoing further clinical validation.
Healthleap Expands to More Than 50 Hospitals
Healthleap says it has grown significantly over the past year.
The company has expanded from three hospital partners to more than 50. Its customers now include major healthcare organizations such as Penn Medicine, Cedars-Sinai, Intermountain, Houston Methodist and Emory Healthcare.
According to CEO Josiah Meyer, the company’s revenue has increased more than tenfold during the same period.
Healthleap uses multi-year contracts based on a hospital’s licensed bed count, along with an outcome-based pricing model.
The company says its customers have so far achieved at least a 5x return on investment in measurable financial impact, with some customers reporting more than 20x annual total ROI.
$23.8 Million Impact at Penn Medicine Hospital
Healthleap says its malnutrition program at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania generated an annualized financial impact of $23.8 million.
According to the company, about $6.3 million came from additional reimbursement, while another $17.5 million was associated with shorter hospital stays.
These figures are based on financial outcomes reported and attributed by the hospital.
What Comes Next?
Healthleap plans to use the new funding to expand its engineering and product teams while investing more in sales and customer success.
The company also wants to expand the number of medical conditions its platform can identify.
Its longer-term goal is to cover more than 40 major health conditions and eventually extend the technology beyond hospitals into outpatient and home-care settings.
Why It Matters
Hospitals generate enormous amounts of patient information every day, but identifying important warning signs across thousands of records can be difficult for healthcare teams.
Healthleap is taking a different approach by using AI to examine both structured medical data and information contained in clinical notes, then bringing potentially important cases to the attention of healthcare professionals.
The technology is not intended to replace doctors or make diagnoses. Instead, its goal is to help care teams find patients who might otherwise require a closer look.
If Healthleap can continue expanding its platform while demonstrating reliable clinical and financial results, AI-based patient-risk screening could become a larger part of how hospitals manage complex patient populations.