Former, a company that uses AI to accelerate health insurance approval for medical procedures, has raised a $20 million Series A round at a $95 million post-money valuation led by NEA, according to two people familiar with the deal. . Existing Sequoia investors, who led the $3.2 million seed round last Septemberand Neoan accelerator that helped launch the company in summer 2022, also participated in the Series A financing.
The round also included a slew of angel investors, including Mustafa Suleyman, a co-founder of DeepMind and Inflection AI who was hired by Microsoft in March to lead the Consumer AI division of the tech giant.
NEA and Anterior did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Anterior, formerly known as Co:helm, was co-founded by Abdel Mahmoud, a former doctor who left medicine to pursue a master’s degree in computer science and a career in technology after becoming frustrated with the amount of time he was spending on administrative duties. instead of with patience.
The company has created a co-pilot powered by LLM that helps nurses and doctors save hours collecting insurance-required medical documentation. Anterior’s solution aims to reduce denial rates and accelerate patients’ access to care.
While Anterior’s initial offering focuses on prior authorization automation, the company eventually plans to expand into other medical administrative functions.
Mohamad Makhzoumi, managing general partner of NEA’s healthcare team and co-CEO of the firm, has joined Anterior’s board of directors. Makhzoumi’s investments include Tempus, a genomic testing and data analytics company founded by Eric Lefkofsky, founder of Grouponwhich plans to go public next week with a valuation up to $6.1 billion. Makhzoimi also backed Xaira, an AI drug discovery startup that launched this year. with a billion dollars in financing.
Previous competes with Cohere Health, another prior authorization automation provider, which raised a $50 million round in February led by Deerfield Managementwith the participation of Define entrepreneurship, Flare Capital Partners, Capital Length and Polaris Partnersbringing the company’s five-year total funding to $106 million.