Anterior (previously named Co:Helm), an AI company built by clinicians to transform healthcare administration, today announced the completion of a $20 million Series A funding round. This funding round was led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), with participation from Sequoia Capital, Blue Lion Global, and Neo.
Anterior has a goal of unlocking doctors and nurses from the administrative burden they experience. And the company’s first objective is to make prior authorization invisible, like the seamless communication that occurs when a credit card is swiped. Anterior’s technology utilizes generative AI to clinically reason, delivering value out of the box, unlike the predictive AI models that have emerged in previous years.
This funding round will help Anterior accelerate its hiring and growth strategies, ensuring the company continues to recruit and retain world-class talent and that its technology remains cutting-edge. And Anterior’s AI clinical co-pilot, cleverly named Florence (Nightingale), tackles the challenges that weren’t previously solvable by technology.
With the clinician’s perspective at the center, Anterior nurses uniquely come to the company’s technology review stand-ups to inform product development and user experience. Anterior is designed so that all of its recommendations are thoroughly reviewed and approved by human clinicians.
The U.S. healthcare system spends hundreds of billions of dollars every year on administrative costs, which is largely driven by the expensive labor of clinicians whose clinical expertise is required for a variety of workflows. By starting with prior authorization, Anterior solves an expensive and time-consuming component of the payer workflow, while also helping patients receive care faster.
KEY QUOTES:
“Our proprietary technology will reduce the administrative burden health insurers in the U.S. face, ultimately saving the country billions and enabling doctors and nurses to work at the top of their license. With half of our team being doctors or nurses, we deeply understand the problem we’re solving. We’re thrilled to join forces with NEA and have the continued support of our existing partners as we continue to put our technology to use for healthcare payers and the long-term benefit of patients across the U.S.”
- Abdel Mahmoud, M.D., co-founder and CEO of Anterior – who is also a doctor turned engineer and a Facebook and Google alum.
“As NEA explores the outer edges of possibility in healthcare and technology, Anterior is a perfect fit for our portfolio. I’m excited to join the team in a board position as they supercharge their next stage of growth. There is a critical need to create efficiencies in healthcare administration, and Anterior’s advanced technology can help streamline processes, reduce costs, and have a significant impact on the industry.”
- Mohamad Makhzoumi, co-CEO of NEA, who will join Anterior’s Board of Directors
“Five years from now, we want Florence to be as ubiquitous as a doctor’s pager but 100x smarter – a trusted partner to clinicians and a core component of healthcare payers’ strategy to create efficiencies and reduce costs. The current industry average for Medical Necessity Reviews is 10.5 complex cases per nurse per day. Florence can cut that time in half, and that’s just one of the problems we are tackling. The future of healthcare will be built on Anterior.”
- Jen Mueller, R.N., VP of Clinical Operations at Anterior and former health plan executive
“While our customers and patients across the U.S. are battling a nursing shortage, Anterior is giving nurses superpowers to unlock their productivity. The payer side of healthcare requires thousands of nurses to be pulled away from patient care to do administrative work that requires clinical input. Anterior has started with creating efficiencies in prior authorization but our approach is applicable to risk adjustment, care management, payment integrity and more.”
- Tahseen Omar, Chief Operating Officer at Anterior
“MedWatch’s ultimate goal is to process cases quickly and accurately on behalf of payers, alleviating the burden on providers and stress on patients. Our nurses love that Florence supercharges them, allowing them to use their clinical expertise rather than digging through paperwork. Florence saves them time, and empowers them to confidently and efficiently make the final decision in any case.”
- Valerie Limpus, Chief Operations and Technology Officer at MedWatch, one of Anterior’s earliest customers
