Anterior raises $20 million from NEA to accelerate health insurance approvals using artificial intelligence

Previous, an organization that uses artificial intelligence to speed health insurance approvals for medical procedures, raised a $20 million Series A round at a $95 million post-money valuation led by NEA, according to two people accustomed to the deal. Current investors are Sequoia, which ran Anterior’s A $3.2 million seed round last Septemberand Neo, the accelerator that helped the corporate launch in the summertime of 2022, also participated in Series A financing.

Numerous angel investors also participated within the round, including Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind and Inflection AI, who was hired by Microsoft in March to lead the tech giant’s consumer artificial intelligence division.

NEA and Anterior didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Anterior, formerly generally known as Co:helm, was founded by Abdel Mahmoud, a former doctor who left medicine to pursue a master’s degree in computer science and a profession within the technology industry after becoming frustrated with the period of time he spent on administrative functions somewhat than patience.

The company has built a second pilot using LLM technology that helps nurses and doctors save hours on collecting insurance-required medical records. Anterior’s solution goals to reduce denials and accelerate patient access to care.

While Anterior’s initial offering includes prior authorization automation, the corporate eventually plans to expand it to other medical administrative functions.

Mohamad Makhzoumi, general partner managing NEA’s healthcare team and co-CEO of the corporate, has joined Anterior’s board of directors. Makhzoumi’s investments include Tempus, a genomic testing and data analytics company founded by Groupon founder Eric Lefkofsky, which plans to go public next week after a valuation to $6.1 billion. Makhzoimi also backed Xaira, an AI-powered drug discovery startup that launched this yr and received $1 billion in funding.

Anterior competes with Cohere Health, one other prior authorization automation provider that led in February Deerfield Managementwith participation from Define ventures, Flare Capital Partners, The capital of longitude AND Polaris Partnersbringing the five-year-old company’s total funding to $106 million.