Healthleap, a clinical AI startup founded in South Africa in 2022, has raised $38 million in seed and Series A funding to expand software that flags hospital patients who may have undiagnosed conditions. The company plans to extend its coverage beyond malnutrition and invest in its engineering, product, sales and customer success teams.
The funding comprises an $8 million seed round co-led by venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and First Round Capital, followed by a $30 million Series A led by venture capital firm Hummingbird Ventures.
Healthleap’s platform connects to a hospital’s electronic health record (EHR) system and analyzes structured clinical data alongside information in clinicians’ written notes. Language models help identify references to symptoms and other clinical indicators, which the software combines with information such as lab results and vital signs to flag patients for further review. The system does not diagnose patients.
“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. Our developing approach is extracting affirmative or negated mentions of these clinical concepts in an easily extensible and scalable way,” said Josiah Meyer, co-founder and CEO of Healthleap.
The platform is deployed in more than 50 hospitals, where it screens for conditions including malnutrition and delirium. Healthleap has also developed programs to identify aspiration pneumonia, pressure ulcers and readmission risk for congestive heart failure. These applications are undergoing further clinical validation, according to Meyer.
The company’s commercial case rests in part on the financial impact of identifying conditions that might otherwise go untreated. At the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Healthleap says its malnutrition program generated $23.8 million in annualized financial impact. Of that amount, $6.3 million came from additional reimbursement and $17.5 million from shorter hospital stays.
The new funding will support further development of the platform as Healthleap expands the range of conditions its software can flag for clinical teams.
