[Funding alert] London-based Phare Health Secures €2.8 Million in Pre-Seed Funding
Nov 22, 2023 | By Startup Rise EU
London-based Phare Health Secures €2.8 million in pre-seed funding led by General Catalyst. In this fundraising round, KHP Ventures and Bertelsmann Investments, two strategic supporters, also participated. They brought with them significant healthcare resources, wide-ranging networks across Europe, and deep industry understanding.
The funds will be utilised to promote AI innovation and development while forming alliances both domestically in the National Health Service (NHS) of the United Kingdom and internationally.
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The financial strain on healthcare systems has intensified over the past several years, forcing hospitals to make large cuts and pushing two thirds of hospitals in Europe to the brink of bankruptcy.
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Dr Martin Seneviratne, co-founder and co-CEO of Phare Health, said: “As a young doctor working in hospitals in Sydney and London, the most frustrating thing was having to spend time on admin, at the expense of patient care. While there is much discussion of the potential use of AI for clinicians, there is a much more urgent need for AI in the back office – doing low-risk, manual, administrative tasks that will free clinicians up to spend more time caring for patients. AI in healthcare should be invisible – it should help behind the scenes to make healthcare more efficient and safe without getting in the way of doctors and nurses.”
Phare Health's aim is to assist international healthcare systems in achieving operational efficiency through the use of safe and useful AI for non-clinical duties. This is an important issue in the US, where administrative jobs outweigh clinical positions by a ratio of ten to one, as well as the UK, where the NHS spends £2.7 billion annually on administration.
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Chris Bischoff, Managing Director of General Catalyst, commented: “We believe Phare is pioneering an entirely new category of financial resilience products for health systems. By partnering with industry stakeholders from the outset, they have demonstrated the ability to collaborate with those who share their commitment to modernising the financial stack of the health system, with sustainability, patient care, and workforce wellbeing in mind. These values align with our Health Assurance thesis and we are excited to participate in their positive impact.”
Thorsten Wirkes, Senior Vice President at Bertelsmann Investments, said: “Automation holds tremendous potential to alleviate the ongoing labor shortage in the healthcare space. We’re excited to invest in Phare as initial customer feedback indicates a clear and strong ROI. Plus, Phare is the only automation coding company going after the inpatient market – and doing so with a global ambition. Overall, we at Bertelsmann Investments see great opportunities for the digital healthcare market and have already invested 90 million Euro in the market since last year.”
With this seed funds, Phare Health will work with top US and European healthcare institutions in order to improve its AI technology. Phare Health is gradually creating an action-focused, real-time intelligence engine for structured data-based healthcare systems.
By doing this, healthcare systems may improve their financial stability, which benefits staff, patients, and the system as a whole. With the money, Phare Health will be able to recruit more AI and healthcare specialists in important markets, growing its staff.
About Phare Health
Hospital administration and revenue cycle management are being brought into the large language model era by Phare Health. To try to solve the fundamental issues with healthcare finance, the company creates AI technology for the back office. By doing this, it lead the industry in enhancing patient, physician, and hospital outcomes.
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In order to enhance visibility and transparency for hospital administrators, the AI system evaluates all patient notes generated by doctors and converts them into structured, useful information for the administrative, operational, and financial teams. This helps to close the gap between physicians and the hospital's operations.