Bertelsmann Investments and General Catalyst invest in generative AI

Bertelsmann Investments and General Catalyst support Phare Health: Investment to drive efficiency and precision in the healthcare sector through generative AI products.

London-based Phare Health recently received an investment from Bertelsmann Investments (BI) and General Catalyst. Phare Health develops AI products to help hospitals make their administrative processes more effective and efficient. The £2.5 million funding round was led by General Catalyst and aims to accelerate the development of Phare Health's AI systems.

The team, led by founders Dr. Martin Seneviratne, Lee Kupferman and Tymor Hamamsy, is on a mission to help increase operational efficiency through safe and practical applications of artificial intelligence for non-clinical tasks.

Carsten Coesfeld, CEO of Bertelsmann Investments

Phare Health, as an early venture, focuses on modernizing revenue cycle management in healthcare through the use of AI. Currently, the company is focused on improving medical coding and creating structured healthcare data from clinical notes. This should lead to cost reductions and more efficient billing. In the future, Phare Health plans to expand into other administrative areas and leverage the value of structured data.

Carsten Coesfeld, CEO of Bertelsmann Investments, was positive about the collaboration and emphasized the long-term commitment of both companies. Phare Health, founded by alumni of DeepMind, Google Health and Stanford, is focused on increasing administrative efficiency in healthcare through the use of AI for non-clinical tasks.

Thorsten Wirkes, Senior Vice President at Bertelsmann Investments, highlighted the potential of automation to alleviate the ongoing labor shortage in healthcare. Phare Health is described as an automation coding company targeting the inpatient market with global ambition.

While there is much discussion about the potential use of AI for clinicians, there is a much more pressing need for AI in the back office - for low-risk, manual, administrative tasks that allow doctors to spend more time on patient care.

Martin Seneviratne, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Phare Health

Chris Bischoff, Managing Director of General Catalyst, highlighted that Phare Health is developing new financial products for health systems and emphasized the shared values around modernizing the healthcare financial system.

The funding from this round will support the further development of Phare Health's AI systems in collaboration with leading European and American health systems. It will also seek to establish partnerships with German hospitals and expand the team with AI and healthcare professionals.

Bertelsmann Investments (BI) comprises Bertelsmann's global venture capital activities and the growth unit Bertelsmann Next. The unit has invested a total of €90 million in the digital healthcare market since 2022 and supports innovative companies worldwide.