\u201cThe fax machine still exists, but only in healthcare,\u201d said Dr. Kaushal Kulkarni, a neuro-ophthalmologist. \u201cSomeone goes out and retrieves records from the hospital basement and proceeds to put 1,000 pages\u2014basically fax records\u2014on my desk. \u2018Here you go, doctor. Have fun.\u2019 And now it\u2019s my job, in the middle of a busy clinic where patients are already waiting half an hour or more, to flip through 1,000 pages and try to figure out what\u2019s going on with the person in front of me who needs help.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Kulkarni met Nishant Hari\u2014who was trying to solve the problem as cofounder of AI-driven health information management startup Predoc\u2014the two connected. Kulkarni first became a user of Predoc, then an angel investor, and ultimately, a cofounder himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis problem is happening right now, probably in hundreds or thousands of doctors\u2019 offices,\u201d Kulkarni said. \u201cAnd you can imagine\u2014people always ask, why am I waiting at the doctor so long? It\u2019s issues like this that are getting in the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Predoc\u2014which uses AI to automate medical records management\u2014has raised $30 million in seed and Series A backing, Fortune has exclusively learned. The round was led by Base10 Partners, with participation from Northzone, Eniac, Era Ventures, and angel investors from Flatiron Health, Datavant, Thirty Madison, and Blackstone<\/a>. The company was founded in 2022 by Hari, Kulkarni, Dr. Priya Mehta, and Alex Daniels.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWithin six months we were doing about half a million dollars in revenue, and that\u2019s when we got preempted for our seed round,\u201d Hari said. \u201cFast forward to today, we\u2019ve got about 35 customers that rely on our retrieval and analysis products. In many cases, we\u2019ve become the fully outsourced solution, replacing their internal legacy teams.\u201d<\/p>\n In healthcare, documents aren\u2019t just documents\u2014they\u2019re vehicles of information that substantially affect a patient\u2019s possible outcomes. Dani London, an investor at Base10, told Fortune via email that health information management, or HIM, is a fragmented market that\u2019s \u201cmassive and severely underserved.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor context, the top HIM service providers only serve the top 10% of the market\u2014yet the five largest service providers do about $2 billion in revenue annually,\u201d London wrote. \u201cMuch of this market wasn\u2019t addressable because of the high overhead of legacy providers. Others were left with manual solutions or in-house teams spending hours on email, phone, and fax. Predoc\u2019s approach effectively unlocks the other 90% of the market. Not only does this create a huge opportunity for Predoc, but it also allows care coordinators and health admin teams across the ecosystem to focus on high-impact work.\u201d<\/p>\n Hari said that the company isn\u2019t looking to supplant physicians: \u201cWe\u2019re not one of those companies that thinks tech and AI will completely replace doctors,\u201d he told Fortune. \u201cOne of our core values is to amplify clinical expertise\u2014to help physicians get to their decisions quicker. We\u2019re not looking to replace clinical judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n Kulkarni\u2014who still practices medicine \u201cone-and-a-half to two days per week\u201d\u2014says this is about freeing up doctors, unencumbering their administrative lives.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople think the role of technology is to help diagnose the patient, but that\u2019s not the issue,\u201d he said. \u201cDiagnosing is the easiest part of medicine. That\u2019s what doctors love to do. The hard part is everything before and after. The role of technology is to remove all the burdensome administrative tasks now put on doctors\u2014and allow them to just do their actual job.\u201d<\/p>\n See you tomorrow,<\/p>\n Allie Garfinkle Joey Abrams curated the deals section of today\u2019s newsletter. Subscribe here<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n Venture Deals<\/p>\n – Fermi<\/b> America<\/b><\/a>, an Amarillo, Texas-based developer of an AI private grid campus, raised $100 million in Series C funding. Macquarie<\/b> Group<\/b> led the round.<\/p>\n – Phasecraft<\/b><\/a>, a Bristol, U.K.-based quantum algorithms company, raised $34 million in Series B funding. Playground<\/b> Global<\/b>, Plural<\/b>, and Novo<\/b> Nordisk<\/b> led the round and was joined by LocalGlobe<\/b>, AlbionVC<\/b>, and Parkwalk<\/b> Advisors<\/b>.<\/p>\n – Loman<\/b> AI<\/b><\/a>, an Austin, Texas-based Voice AI platform for restaurants, raised $3.5 million in seed funding. Next Coast<\/b> Ventures<\/b> led the round and was joined by TenOneTen<\/b> Ventures<\/b> and Antler<\/b>.<\/p>\n Private Equity<\/p>\n – Apheon<\/b> acquired Cain<\/b> Food<\/b><\/a>, a Dallas, Texas-based manufacturer of clean label ingredients for industrial bakeries. Financial terms were not disclosed.<\/p>\n – Frontline Road Safety<\/b>, backed by Bain<\/b> Capital<\/b>, acquired Peek<\/b> Pavement<\/b> Marketing<\/b><\/a>, a Columbus, Ga.-based pavement marking and road safety services. Financial terms were not disclosed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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