Hersh Solanki

Matt Holt, former New Mountain Capital executive, is exploring a $30 billion deal to combine five health tech startups into a single platform called Thoreau. The venture would set out to simplify and integrate services across payers, providers and data — and if completed, it would rank among the largest private equity-backed health tech companies ever. Time will tell if this massive consolidation ever gets completed or translates into real value — or if it's just another bet on scale.

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Loved geeking out with some of the sharpest minds in healthcare VC this week. It’s always energizing to hear folks unpack where digital health, AI, and care delivery might be heading — especially because there are thoughtful perspectives across the spectrum. A few takeaways that stood out: 1️⃣Cost containment is top of mind — though strategies vary widely. Everyone agrees rising costs are unsustainable, but the approaches differ: specialty care models, operational efficiency, labor leverage, and infrastructure all play a role. Examples: Heartbeat Health (cardiology), CareBridge (LTSS/HCBS; acquired by Elevance), Diana Health (OB/GYN across high-Medicaid hospitals). 2️⃣AI has real promise — but the bar is very high. There’s no shortage of enthusiasm around AI, but also healthy skepticism about where value will truly accrue. The consistent theme: depth of technical differentiation + measurable workflow impact. Example: Ambience Healthcare — backed for its technical rigor and broader infrastructure vision beyond scribing. 3️⃣The commercial employer market is evolving fast. Especially among small and mid-market employers, we’re seeing more innovation around transparency, dynamic plan design, and benefit flexibility. Examples: Helm Health (dynamic copay), Garner Health (transparent navigation), Lynx (ICHRA infrastructure). 4️⃣Value-based care continues to be a long-term direction for the system. While there are different views on timing and adoption, the shared belief is that models improving efficiency, right-site-of-care, and aligned incentives will play an increasingly important role. Examples: Equip (case-rate eating disorder care — strong outcomes without needing full risk), InStride Health (severe OCD/child behavioral health). 5️⃣Epic remains one of the most influential forces in the market. Even without launching a full product, Epic can “freeze” an entire category simply by announcing that they’re entering it. While their first versions often deliver ~60% of best-in-class functionality, their scale, distribution, and embedded workflows mean adoption can still be high — and the ripple effects for startups are significant. Huge thank you to our panelists — all incredible MIT alums — for sharing such balanced, thoughtful insights: Payal Agrawal Divakaran (.406 Ventures), Annie Weissbach (Echo Health Ventures), Laura Veroneau (Optum Ventures), Ellen Herlacher (LRVHealth), and Andrew Geraghty (Morgan Health). And grateful for my Sloan Healthcare Club teammates Kendall (Kenji) Yoshii and María Soledad Ross — truly the best partners to co-lead this with. Always love being part of this community. Already excited for what’s next. #DigitalHealth #VentureCapital #Startups #EarlyStage #MITSloan

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Too many startups assume: 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚’𝙨 𝙖 𝘾𝙋𝙏 𝙘𝙤𝙙𝙚 → 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚’𝙨 𝙖 𝙗𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨. Reality is rarely that linear. Viability tends to unfold in fits and starts, shaped by payer coverage, provider workflows, and the real operational burden behind reliable billing. ⚙️📉 Inspired by Matt Kamen's excellent post on CPT adoption curves & the recent ACCESS discussion, we’re sharing our internal framework: 𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐀𝐬𝐤 𝐁𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐧 𝐚 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐁𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐂𝐨𝐝𝐞 It goes deeper than payment policy — covering clinical and documentation requirements, enrollment and service mechanics, operational readiness, and the maturity of the CPT pathway. 🧠📋 If you’re evaluating a CPT-driven business model — or working with someone who is — comment “𝘾𝙋𝙏” below + DM me & I’ll share the document. 📄➡️ #startups #HealthcarePolicy #HealthTech #CMMI #ACCESSModel #Medicare #DigitalHealth

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𝗖𝘂𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗥𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗲𝘀 $𝟭𝟱𝟬𝗠 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗕, 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘀 $𝟭.𝟯𝗕 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Curative, a tech-enabled health plan built around a $0 out-of-pocket model, closed a $150M Series B round that brings its valuation to $1.275B. The company offers plans with no copays, deductibles, or coinsurance as long as members complete an annual preventive “Baseline Visit.” Curative reports early results that include a 20% rise in primary care use, a 30% drop in hospitalizations, and up to 40% lower drug costs. Curative now covers 165,000 members across 1,200 employer clients in Texas, Florida and Georgia, and plans to expand into the Mid-Atlantic. Funding will support regulatory reserves, national expansion, AI investments, and stronger member engagement as the startup positions itself as a new model for employer-based insurance.

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Great HLTH 2025. Some big trends I saw: - Drug distribution is going direct - Payers want vendors to take risk - Everyone has a chatbot - Behavioral health is maturing - FDA clearance is the new Series B - Post-discharge is a big opportunity - Diagnostics are becoming portable and ROI-oriented - Provider workflows are becoming consumer-grade

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Digital health startup Hinge Health said on Tuesday it is targeting a valuation of up to $2.98 billion on a fully diluted basis in its initial public offering, signaling thawing of the U.S. IPO market after recent market volatility. Financial markets have regained their footing in recent weeks as the de-escalation in U.S.-China trade tensions has rekindled expectations for a resurgence in dealmaking activity. Even at the top of its proposed pricing range, Hinge Health's target represents a nearly 52% reduction from the $6.2 billion valuation it fetched in the 2021 Series E round, led by Coatue Management and Tiger Global. "Investors do expect a healthy discount to peers. Companies are often advised to start low and build interest," said Matthew K., senior strategist at Renaissance Capital LLC, a provider of IPO-focused research and ETFs. Founded in 2014 by Daniel Perez and Gabriel Mecklenburg, Hinge Health's platform leverages artificial intelligence to provide at-home musculoskeletal care, chronic pain management, and post-surgical rehabilitation. Rising concerns over Americans' sedentary lifestyles and dietary choices have driven demand for improved healthcare options. Read more in Reuters story here: https://lnkd.in/etQ58GSx

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After solving a 40-year long enigma about how the vertebrate head originated with Mike Levine from Lewis-Sigler Institute of Integrative Genomics at Princeton University, you cannot imagine what I’ve been secretly building… but some already know :) I quote: “→ 9) Biotech is at decade-low valuations and decade-high capability. This is Lux’s strongest contrarian call. Founders can hit clinical milestones with less capital thanks to AI, but China can copy fast. So the new edge = complexity, not speed. The next bio winners won’t be lean, they’ll be technically unreplicable.”

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Me and my team surveyed 100+ healthcare providers before making Scribe Health | AI Medical Scribe & Charting We found out that doctors spend 2 hours on documentation for every 1 hour they spend with patients. That's not healthcare. That's administrative hell. So I built an AI medical scribe that listens to patient conversations and automatically generates clinical notes. No typing. No staying late to finish charts. Just more time for actual patient care. The smartest VCs on the planet are betting big on this space. Freed: $30M from Sequoia. Heidi: $16M from Menlo Ventures and Anthropic. They see what we see healthcare's burnout crisis demands AI solutions, now. We're starting with documentation, but thinking bigger: patient intake, scheduling, pre-authorization, revenue cycle management. The entire clinical workflow, reimagined.

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🚨 From Zero to RCM: What We Learned About the $600B Medical Billing Industry in 10 Weeks 🚨 Ten weeks ago, Elman Amador and I joined a Stanford research project under the guidance of Scott Brady and Brett Jordan We didn’t know what “RCM” (Revenue Cycle Management) meant. We had never worked in U.S. healthcare. We just had a hunch: the biggest AI opportunities might not be in flashy diagnostics, but buried in the broken back office. So we went deep. We interviewed 45+ healthtech founders, billers, BPO operators, clinicians, coders, and payers. We mapped workflows, tested tools, shadowed billing teams, and tried to understand what’s really going on under the hood of U.S. medical billing. What we found was astonishing: 💸 RCM is a $600B+ ecosystem of inefficiency Every clinical encounter kicks off a billing journey that touches 5–7 systems, is reviewed by multiple humans, and often results in no payment at all. 30% of claims are denied. Over 60% of those are never appealed. 🧠 Denials aren’t rare: they’re expected Teams assume a large portion of revenue will be written off. Not because it's invalid, but because no one has the time, tools, or visibility to recover it. 🔐 PM and EMR systems are data fortresses Forget plug-and-play. Critical billing data is locked in PDFs, paywalled APIs, or fragmented portals. Even the most advanced models can’t perform without structured access. 📊 There’s no feedback loop Unlike product or sales teams, most billing ops teams can’t track recovery rates, appeal success, or systemic blockers. As one biller told us: “We don’t get better. We just get busier.” 💥 Burnout is real—and it’s systemic Billers sit on hold with payers. Coders decipher cryptic physician notes. Appeals teams copy-paste just to keep up. It’s emotionally draining, economically wasteful and tragically normalized. And that’s the wildest part: Everyone accepts this as normal. The inefficiency is so baked in that people stop questioning it. But billions in lost revenue and countless hours are hidden inside these gaps. 🔊 Last week, we had the opportunity to present our findings to classmates and faculty at Stanford, sparking conversations about how deep tech might finally move the needle in healthcare operations. This research also laid the foundation for a new collaboration with Stanford University and Kevin Schulman, where we’ll be exploring healthcare administrative systems and the economics of care delivery more broadly throughout the summer. 🔍 We’re continuing to research this space and we’re just getting started. If you’re working in RCM, healthcare tooling, payer ops or know someone we should speak with we’d love to connect. Introductions, ideas, and insights are deeply appreciated.

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Today marks $OMDA's first earnings as a public company. 📈 Revenue up 49% YoY to $61M 👥 Members up 52% YoY to 752K 💪 Strong margin improvements and progress toward profitability What started as a sketch on a whiteboard has grown into a Between-Visit Care model now scaling to 752K active members (up 52% YoY). With expanding GLP-1care track capabilities, new artificial intelligence capabilities, and growing partnerships, Omada Health's Q2 results show strong momentum in a large addressable market. Thank you to our members, customers, and Omadans. We're just getting started on our mission to bend the curve of chronic disease. https://lnkd.in/gEc7cZYp

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Ah, remember the good old days when healthcare startups were showered with VC money like confetti at a parade? Those eye-popping valuations seemed like badges of honor—every founder's favorite bragging right at cocktail parties. Fast forward to reality: the market has sobered up, shifting from the "party-all-night" 10x revenue valuations to the more "responsible adulting" 3-5x earnings. Suddenly, these once-glamorous startups are stuck awkwardly between a rock (IPOing at half their glittery unicorn valuations) and a hard place (merging and recapitalizing, diluting early investors’ stakes—hello, H@H). Of course, timing can be everything. At year 7, success often hinges less on "genius strategy" and more on market headwinds or tailwinds. Founders who exited in 2021 get to sit on stage and wax poetic about their impeccable vision and secret sauce. Meanwhile, those looking to exit today might quietly reflect over a cup of coffee (or something stronger) on what they might have done differently. Truth is, neither group is as brilliant or as hapless as society would like to think. So, next time you see a headline about a deal announcement that’s suspiciously lacking details, remember to hold off on sending congratulatory champagne. Your friends might actually prefer a comforting hug—they could very well be mourning the quiet loss of their shirts.

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We at Andreessen Horowitz could not be more thrilled to lead Ease Health's $41M Series A to redefine healthcare’s operating system, unifying intake (CRM), clinical (EHR), and billing (RCM) into a single, AI-native core platform. We’ve seen this operating system playbook succeed in other industries with companies like Toast and ServiceTitan. Healthcare – long burdened by fragmented, legacy software – is ready for the same shift. Ease is starting in behavioral health, and already supports hundreds of providers across inpatient, outpatient (IOP, PHP, MAT), and residential. The team made this decision easy. CEO Zach Cohen has been a friend and colleague at a16z for years, and was someone I knew I’d be extremely lucky to back if ever given the opportunity. CTO Raymond W. is an incredible engineering leader with a track record of building and scaling elite technical teams. And President Steve Gold previously built and sold the behavioral health leader Refresh to Optum for one of the largest exits in the space. We’re proud to partner with Zach, Raymond, and Steve, and to invest alongside Abstract, BoxGroup, Sunflower Capital, and F3 Partners. Check it out: https://easehealth.com Eva Steinman Anish Acharya

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OpenEvidence, the ChatGPT for doctors, just raised another $200M at a $6B valuation. I wrote down a few thoughts. 1️⃣ 𝐂𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐀𝐈 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫 𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐞 After the failure of Watson Health (and many others), OpenEvidence shows the strongest tech adoption among healthcare professionals in history. In the US, it is about to surpass radiology AI, which has been the most established category so far (around 80% of FDA approvals). In Europe, the need is just as strong. The CEO of a major hospital in France said doctors in his hospital made 100,000 LLM requests (mostly through ChatGPT) in August 2025 (which is actually a slow month). This is clearly a grey zone from a compliance perspective, but the demand is so strong that banning it makes little sense. 2️⃣ 𝐓𝐨𝐩 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐣𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐄𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞’𝐬 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 The round was led by Google Ventures, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Blackstone, Thrive Capital, Coatue, Bond, and Craft. These investors have backed many of the biggest tech successes in other industries. They don’t see OpenEvidence as a symptom of an AI bubble in healthcare: they believe it will fundamentally reshape the sector. 3️⃣ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐢𝐠 𝐋𝐋𝐌 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐬𝐨 𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞 ChatGPT announced plans to specialize in healthcare and hired the former CEO of Doximity (one of the most successful healthtech companies) to lead the effort. Anthropic just announced a "Claude for Life Sciences". 4️⃣ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐤𝐞𝐲 𝐛𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝: (𝐦𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥) 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐚 Those who have access to the best medical data will win. Right now, medical publishers are best positioned, but these new models might disrupt the publishing industry (likely for the better, since the current business model is questionable). 5️⃣ 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐄𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐮𝐧𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐨𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐩𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐚 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐞𝐝𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 On two fronts: ▪️Advertising: OpenEvidence is free for physicians and plans to monetize through ads, aiming to become the “Google of healthcare,” as its CEO says. ▪️Feeding the model: Ensuring that the latest medical studies are reflected in OpenEvidence (and similar tools) will be critical. Producing real-world evidence at scale will become the new differentiator. In other words, medical will become the new marketing.... and that’s probably a good thing. ----- Follow HGM Advisory for daily reposts of the most relevant HealthTech news. #ai #cds #HealthTech #Healthcare

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Something to note from Menlo Ventures's incredible AI in healthcare report....their data confirm what many of us in health systems already feel coming: AI adoption will INCREASE administrative volume before it reduces it. Payers expect, in the next 12–36 months: 63% major jump in call volume 50% more codes per claim 40%+ higher claim volume 38% more prior auths 31% more appeals + resubmissions When documentation gets easier, volume is going to skyrocket. Implications we’re already planning against: - AI adoption doesn’t remove work inherently; it redistributes it across the ecosystem. Workflow redesign is critical. - Providers need guardrails to prevent over-generation of documentation and requests. More noise helps noone. - Startups must show cross-stakeholder ROI, not siloed productivity gains... - Health systems need a system-wide AI playbook, or every local win creates a downstream backlog. This next 2-3 years will either widen payer–provider tension or force real alignment. I'm not counting on the latter. Curious how others are preparing.

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AI x Healthcare = Unprecedented Opportunities 🎯 (and you don’t often see healthcare and unprecedented in the same sentence) Excellent report by Menlo Ventures. Thoughtful summary by the one-n-only C.C. Gong. Healthcare IS the #1 sector in the US representing 20% of our GDP. Healthcare has not really changed for umpteen years and decades. And, now, AI startups are the ones who are (and will) transforming Healthcare for patients and practitioners. Exciting times 🚀. Full report below. #AIDecade #InvestorDecade #EntrepreneurDecade

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Healthcare pulled in $65B in VC in 2024. Second only to enterprise software/AI. Nearly double that of fintech. And I don’t think most investors are really clocking that. We all chase AI, right? But capital doesn’t just flow into code. It eventually needs walls. Labs. Real-world infrastructure. We saw this play out post-2021. Developers overbuilt lab space expecting the biotech boom to run hot forever. By 2023, vacancy ticked up—14%, give or take. And people started backing off. But the capital didn’t leave. It reallocated. Diagnostics, AI drug discovery, biomanufacturing... they're all still raising. You’ve got $65B in motion. You think that doesn’t need square footage? I’ve seen this cycle before, especially in healthcare real estate. Capital gets ahead of the buildings—and then the buildings catch up. So yeah. Lab space might feel soft right now. But if you're patient, and positioned, this could be the entry point that pays off for the next 10 years. I’m holding exposure. You?

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US Healthcare administrative spending is ~$1T annually, but the workflows that underpin industry remain outdated and heavily labor-intensive. Behind every patient interaction sits a dense layer of administrative work: intake, documentation validation, eligibility checks, payer communication, and follow-ups that determine whether care actually gets delivered and reimbursed. Despite decades of digitization efforts, much of this work remains manual, fragmented, and deeply inefficient. AI-native solutions like Synthpop - Healthcare AI are the only way to fulfill rising demand and increased patient expectations. The early value delivered to customers has been extremely compelling; Ansa Capital is thrilled to lead the Series A, join the Board and partner with Elad Ferber Jan Jannink and the Synthpop team. Read more about our investment in the comments. Allan Jean-Baptiste Josh Chin Arielle Warren Douglas Aaron, CPA Ashley Henry ilana stern Medha Agarwal Arun Penmetsa Mark Stephenson Scott Holzberg Hajdi Cenan

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