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Forbes
18 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
20 Hurdles For Healthcare Tech Startups In Scaling Solutions
A healthcare startup may launch with a bold and innovative idea, but turning that idea into a scalable solution that works across hospitals and complex health systems is rarely straightforward. From integrating with legacy infrastructure to navigating strict compliance requirements and diverse stakeholder priorities, even the most agile teams can struggle to scale effectively. Left unaddressed, these challenges can stall adoption, drain internal resources and limit a product's long-term impact. Below, members of Forbes Technology Council highlight some of the most common hurdles healthcare startups must be ready for and share their expertise on breaking into and succeeding in this challenging sector. 1. Finding Client Champions To scale solutions within a health system or payer organization, you need to engage a team of internal champions who can understand, justify and prioritize your platform. Organizations evaluate dozens if not hundreds of companies each year. Champions help articulate your value, often leveraging their professional credibility to advocate for it. Finding and 'winning' them is essential to scaling. - Graham Gardner, Kyruus Health 2. Navigating Integration Requirements Across Hospital Systems One of the biggest hurdles is navigating the complexities of integration requirements across different hospital systems. Healthcare startups frequently underestimate the time and resources needed for integrations. Success requires building flexible APIs from day one and having dedicated integration specialists who understand healthcare IT infrastructure, not just general software development. - Ted Kail, Cority Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify? 3. Gaining Traction In A Risk-Averse Environment Most healthcare organizations are risk-averse and don't want to be early adopters. They look for proven, well-established companies and products, making it difficult for healthcare startups to get traction, even when they have clearly better solutions. Partnering and delivering real value to that first set of clients is critical in scaling early on. - John Bou, Modio Health 4. Integrating With Insurance Systems Health insurance companies amplify the interoperability challenge by adding another layer of complex, often siloed, data and systems that healthcare tech startups must integrate with. This makes the negotiation and implementation of business associate and HIPAA agreements more complicated, given the data types, security requirements and shared liabilities that arise from integrating with both providers and payers. - Ajai Paul, Affirm Inc. 5. Understanding The Complex Stakeholder Ecosystem Healthcare startups often make the mistake of viewing the U.S. healthcare system with a 'singular' point of view. It is an integrated ecosystem where each stakeholder is affected by the others, which means multiple interests must be aligned when adopting new technologies. - Raghav Ramabadran, Intelligine Technologies 6. Building Custom Integrations For Each Customer Healthcare startups' challenges include integrating with electronic health record systems, which is not a 'plug and play' process. Each hospital or system has its own highly customized version of an EHR, with unique workflows, data fields and security protocols. This lack of standardization means startups must build a new integration for nearly every customer. - Chris Ciabarra, Athena Security Inc. 7. Developing Strong Governance From The Outset Healthcare startups often wait to build full product depth until after landing their first client, but healthcare's high-risk, structured environment demands strong governance from day one. Change control, release management and a deep understanding of current operations, especially when replacing legacy systems, are essential before customizing. Building depth late risks delays and failure! - Trisha Swift, Mula Integrative Health & Wellness 8. Maintaining HIPAA Compliance With Digital Content One challenge healthcare startups face when scaling tech is managing digital content while staying HIPAA-compliant. Hospitals need more than stock photos and shared drives—they expect secure, role-based access to branded visuals that convey authenticity and protect patient privacy. Without a digital asset management strategy, startups risk falling short on compliance, credibility and growth. - Andrew Fingerman, PhotoShelter 9. Ensuring Consistent Performance And Compliance Across Disparate Systems Healthcare startups often struggle to scale because hospital environments vary widely in terms of infrastructure, workflows and data systems. Without a unified data architecture, real-time metrics, and built-in security and governance, it's hard to ensure consistent performance—or meet privacy requirements like HIPAA and business associate agreements governing protected health information. - Dave Albano, Diliko 10. Working Within Complex Pricing And Claims Rules One of the challenges is the integration of new tech into strict hospital billing and compliance processes. Hospitals have complex pricing and claims rules, and startups must work within these rules. They can't disrupt revenue or patient data safety. Doing this right builds trust and helps a solution scale faster. - Abhishek Sinha, Accenture 11. Processing Both Structured And Unstructured Health Data Integrating structured data (EHRs; lab results) and unstructured data (clinical notes; imaging; video) can be a major challenge. Healthcare startups must ensure their tech can process both, all while adapting to varying data and privacy standards across systems, which further complicates scaling and interoperability. Fortunately, generative AI is making this easier to do. - David Talby, John Snow Labs 12. Balancing Accuracy And Transparency With Scalability The healthcare and life sciences sector faces rigorous accuracy and transparency requirements that cannot be sacrificed and must be built into products from the start. Balancing this with scalability—which is really code for 'solving problems you don't have yet'—is a constant challenge—especially for startups, which often place a key focus on agility and speed. - Martin Snyder, Certara 13. Maintaining A Consistent, Accurate Record Of Core Assets One key challenge healthcare startups face when scaling tech solutions across systems is the inability to maintain a consistent and accurate record of core assets—such as patients, providers and devices—due to the absence of a robust master data management strategy. This causes data fragmentation, which in turn hinders decision-making, innovation and seamless integration across platforms. - Somnath Banerjee 14. Keeping Up With A Range Of Regional Norms And Laws Key challenges include a wide range of compliance requirements, regulations, cultural norms, and data privacy and region-specific laws—making a one-size-fits-all solution impractical, even within a single organization. Startups often rely on business rules engines that lack user friendliness. Agentic AI offers a more adaptable and intuitive alternative. - Koushik Sundar, Citibank 15. Working Within Legacy Hospital Systems One major challenge healthcare startups face when scaling tech solutions is integration with legacy hospital systems. Many hospitals rely on outdated EHRs or siloed IT infrastructure, making interoperability difficult. Startups must ensure compliance, data security and seamless integration to gain trust and adoption at scale. - Srikanth Bellamkonda 16. Clearly Demonstrating ROI And Pathways To Reimbursement Healthcare startups often struggle to clearly demonstrate a return on investment and secure reimbursement pathways. Without established billing codes or tangible cost-savings data, hospitals hesitate to allocate budget. Startups must invest heavily in economic validation, health economics and outcomes research, ensuring payers and finance teams see sustainable revenue models before adoption. - Manav Kapoor, Amazon 17. Creating An Internal COE Establishing an internal center of excellence with deep industry experience in scaling healthcare systems is vital, but costly. A key challenge lies in selecting vendors that align with the company's DNA. Bridging the gap between emerging tech and the unique demands of healthcare requires thoughtful planning and a nuanced understanding of both innovation and patient-centric outcomes. - Hari Sonnenahalli, NTT Data Business Solutions 18. Overcoming Resistance To New Tech I've regularly observed the challenges clinical sites face when adopting new technologies. There is often reluctance or resistance to change; staffing shortages further exacerbate these issues. A more effective approach may be to 'mirror' site-level data. This would allow AI-driven platforms to build a harmonized system that enables forward progress without disrupting existing workflows. - Rachel Tam, Bristol Myers Squibb 19. Accounting For Integration Issues When Building Solutions The biggest hurdle to overcome when scaling tech solutions across hospitals or healthcare systems is not technical; rather, it is integration—into provider workflows, clinical practice guidelines, financial models and revenue cycle management programs. Unless the issues around integration are considered and covered when building the solution, scaling will not occur. The landscape is littered with misaligned HealthTech startups. - Mark Francis, Electronic Caregiver 20. Completing Vendor Risk Documentation Post-ransomware, hospitals demand extensive vendor risk audits with hundreds of security controls, SOC 2/HITRUST docs, and custom BAAs. Completing these lengthy questionnaires stretches sales cycles to 18 to 24 months, burning cash and pulling engineers from product work to compliance, blocking scale. - Mohit Menghnani, Twilio
Geek Wire
20 hours ago
- Business
- Geek Wire
From grief to innovation: Seattle tech vets building personal AI tool with persistent memory and privacy
GeekWire's startup coverage documents the Pacific Northwest entrepreneurial scene. Sign up for our weekly startup newsletter , and check out the GeekWire funding tracker and venture capital directory . Seattle tech and business leader Mary Jesse, CEO of ACME Brains, a new startup developing a personal context engine for AI systems. Mary Jesse couldn't sleep. Grieving after her husband's unexpected death from late-stage cancer, the longtime Seattle business and engineering leader typed three words into ChatGPT: 'I am sad.' The AI's surprisingly compassionate response helped her through that difficult moment, and others that followed, validating her experience and reassuring her that she could get through it. 'It was just really simple,' she recalled. 'But it was so helpful.' It also revealed the popular chatbot's limitations. Jesse found that ChatGPT couldn't easily resurface the context of their past conversations. She worried about the privacy implications, as well. Jesse said she wouldn't normally share such a personal story publicly, but the experience was the basis for what would become her next venture. She and two other tech industry veterans, Alan Caplan and Bob Bergstrom, this week unveiled their new Seattle-based startup, called ACME Brains, which is building what they call a 'personal context engine.' They say the patent-pending AI system will remember key details over time, and give users control over their data. The first product to use the system, currently under development by the startup, is called nexie. It's a personal AI assistant designed to seamlessly resurface information from past conversations, without requiring users to manually search through threads or craft elaborate prompts to maintain continuity over time. Nexie is currently in early development with a working prototype. The company plans to start alpha testing soon, followed by a beta program focused on gathering user feedback prior to a future public launch. The three co-founders bring a broad range of experience to the startup: Jesse, CEO, began her career in the wireless industry, in engineering and leadership roles at McCaw Cellular and AT&T Wireless before co-founding the mobile infrastructure company RadioFrame Networks. She has led and advised early-stage startups and was CEO of MTI, a global provider of smart locks and security systems. Bob Bergstrom, chief scientist. Bergstrom, chief scientist, has worked as both a software engineer and patent attorney for more than four decades. Earlier in his career, he conducted scientific research in x-ray crystallography, and he has since focused on intellectual property strategy and software development. Caplan, COO, was Amazon's first general counsel, starting in its early days after working with Jesse at McCaw Cellular. He led several business units at Amazon, including Kitchen, Payments, and Corporate Development, and went on to hold senior leadership roles at Blue Origin and Vulcan. Alan Caplan, COO. Jesse envisions nexie as everything from a digital journal to a travel companion or even a lightweight system for tracking personal contacts and relationships, depending on a user's needs. The subscription-based service will be available in free and premium versions. It won't rely on advertising or data monetization, a deliberate departure from many consumer tech platforms. While companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google are all investing heavily in AI memory features, Jesse said ACME Brains is taking a different approach. Rather than embedding memory within a large language model, its architecture keeps the user's data separate and under their control — seeking to be more efficient and secure. Jesse sees nexie not as a competitor to the big AI platforms and existing LLMs, but as a tool that can enhance them — making their output more useful and meaningful for personal use. Over time, she believes the underlying system ACME Brains is developing could serve as a kind of 'personal credential,' carrying private, user-controlled data and context across AI apps and platforms. The Seattle-based startup has been bootstrapped by its founders so far, with about 11 people working across technology development, marketing, and operations, primarily in a virtual capacity. Jesse said ACME Brains expects a public launch of nexie by late 2025 or early 2026, with sign-ups for future beta testing now available at
Bloomberg
20 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Founders Fund, Microsoft-Backed Armada Raises $131 Million For AI Data Centers
Armada, a startup that makes movable AI data centers for use in fields like manufacturing and defense, has raised $131 million from investors in a deal that highlights the broad use cases for artificial intelligence. The round included new investors Pinegrove Capital Partners, Veriten and Glade Brook Capital Partners, as well as more funding from existing investors like Founders Fund, Lux Capital, Microsoft Corp.'s venture fund and Marlinspike Partners. The company declined to provide its valuation.
Geek Wire
21 hours ago
- Business
- Geek Wire
RFID startup Xemelgo lands new funding from Zebra Ventures
GeekWire's startup coverage documents the Pacific Northwest entrepreneurial scene. Sign up for our weekly startup newsletter, and check out the GeekWire funding tracker and venture capital directory.
Forbes
21 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
AI Coding Startup Cognition In Talks To Raise At $10 Billion Valuation
Scott Wu, the CEO and cofounder of Cognition. Cody Pickens for Forbes Cognition, maker of the generative coding assistant Devin, is in talks to raise north of $300 million, valuing the AI startup at $10 billion, according to five people familiar with the deal. Founders Fund and Khosla Ventures are both involved in the deal, the people said. The deal would more than double Cognition's valuation, only months after a funding round led by 8VC, the venture firm led by Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale, valued the company at $4 billion in March, per Bloomberg. One source cautioned that the terms of the deal could change because it is still being finalized. The funding round comes after a whirlwind acquisition for Cognition. For months, OpenAI had been rumored to be buying Windsurf, a rival AI coding startup. But in a surprise announcement earlier this month, the startup's founders announced they were instead joining Google in a $2.4 billion deal. Two days later, Cognition said it was buying the remainder of Windsurf for an undisclosed sum. 'The new Cognition will work faster than ever,' CEO Scott Wu said in a video announcing the deal, sitting next to Windsurf's new CEO Jeff Wang. 'We want to redefine how humans and agents work together.' Cognition, Founders Fund and Khosla did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Founded in 2023 by three Olympiad-level gold medalist coders, Cognition launched its AI agent Devin last year to much fanfare. A demo video quickly went viral, but the company also garnered criticism from skeptics worried that the company was overhyping Devin's capabilities. 'Software engineering in the real world is just very messy,' Wu told Forbes last year. Since then, the company has won over corporate customers including expense management company Ramp, data platform MongoDB and fintech Nubank. Meanwhile, the generative AI coding market has exploded. Rival Anysphere, maker of the wildly popular Cursor tool, has been heralded as one of the fastest growing startups of all time, with annualized revenue now tallying more than $500 million. It was last valued in June at $9.9 billion in a $900 million round led by Thrive Capital. Sweden's Lovable, another AI 'vibe coding' startup that focuses on non-technical people, has reached $100 million in annualized revenue in eight months, beating Cursor to that milestone. At tech giants, CEOs including Google's Sundar Pichai and Microsoft's Satya Nadella have said more than a quarter of code at their companies are now being written by AI. Cognition president Russell Kaplan told Forbes last year that the company wants Devin to act like 'an army of junior engineers' that could automate coding tasks for enterprise customers. At the time, Wu acknowledged the anxiety it could cause software engineers. 'There really is a lot of fear out there,' he said. 'People have a lot of questions about what happens in this new paradigm.' Iain Martin contributed reporting.
