Flax Health, a startup focused on improving operations in skilled nursing facilities, has announced a $3.5 million pre-seed funding round. The investment was co-led by Sorenson Capital and Pear VC, with additional support from healthcare executives and operators in the skilled nursing space. This funding will enable the company to expand its platform, onboard new customers, and further develop its AI-powered tools.
The company’s mission is to reduce the administrative burden that often distracts staff from patient care. Skilled nursing facilities face rising costs, staffing shortages, and increasing regulatory complexity, all of which make it more complicated to deliver high-quality care. Flax Health addresses these challenges by automating time-consuming workflows, including referral processing, patient intake, and claims management.
Its first product, already in use across several states, focuses on hospital referrals for admissions. The system pulls referral packets, summarizes patient information, and flags potential risks like expensive medications or insurance issues. This allows facilities to make faster, more informed decisions about which patients to admit.
Early results from customers show that the platform can save nearly 50 hours per month on administrative tasks and increase weekly reimbursements by thousands of dollars. Referral decisions are made 40 percent faster, and the system includes built-in privacy and security features to meet industry standards.
Flax Health was founded by Trent Hazy and David Kartchner, both of whom bring deep experience in healthcare and AI. Their goal is to build tools that are not only powerful but also practical for the unique needs of post-acute care providers. By combining domain expertise with advanced technology, Flax is helping facilities operate more efficiently and improve patient outcomes.
KEY QUOTES:
“Skilled nursing facilities are under enormous pressure. Rising costs, staffing shortages, and growing regulatory complexity make it harder to deliver quality care. We built Flax to reduce the administrative burden pulling staff away from patients and to help facilities make smarter, faster decisions. Our customers are already seeing material results in both time savings and revenue recovery.”
Trent Hazy, CEO and Co-Founder of Flax
“Flax Health is tackling real operational pain points with a solution that’s easy to adopt and delivers immediate impact. The team’s mix of healthcare domain knowledge and AI expertise, paired with strong early traction, makes them well-positioned to lead in this space. We’re excited to support their next phase of growth.”
Eric Hilton, Partner at Sorenson Capital
“We’re proud to partner with Trent and David, experienced second-time founders who bring an enterprise-grade product and deep healthcare research expertise to improving administrative workflows. Skilled Nursing Facilities play a critical role in caring for patients after hospital discharge or surgery, yet have historically been underserved when it comes to modern technology. Equipping these facilities with AI can meaningfully improve patient outcomes while strengthening operational sustainability – both essential to the health of our system. We’re excited for Flax to bring cutting-edge generative AI to the workflows of these vital care providers.”
Mar Hershenson, Founding Managing Partner at Pear VC
