Insider Brief
- Lena Health has raised $2M in an oversubscribed seed round led by Emergent Ventures and Cultivation Capital to scale its AI-powered care coordination platform that automates follow-up care and connects patients to essential resources.
- The AI assistant supports high-volume, complex coordination tasks like scheduling appointments, managing medications, and linking patients to community services — delivering over 10x ROI for hospitals and ACOs while reducing readmissions and uncompensated care.
- Built with a human-in-the-loop model and real-world health system collaboration, Lena Health balances automation with personalized care, enhancing patient engagement and improving outcomes across vulnerable populations.
PRESS RELEASE — Lena Health, creator of an innovative AI care coordinator, has announced the successful close of an oversubscribed $2 million seed funding round. Emergent Ventures and Cultivation Capital led the round with participation from the Texas Medical Center (TMC) Venture Fund and Caravan Health Ventures (CHV).
“Health systems see tens of thousands, and many over hundreds of thousands, of emergency department and inpatient discharges each year, but lack the staffing to provide timely follow-up and coordinated care,” said Alejandro Harb, Founder and CEO of Lena Health. “We solve this gap by scaling personalized patient support through a telephonic AI assistant capable of complex, multi-step coordination.”
Harb founded Lena Health following his experience as a Digital Health Strategist and Biodesign Fellow at the Texas Medical Center Innovation Institute, where he saw the urgent need for streamlined patient navigation. “I once met an ER patient who returned due to medication issues simply because her pharmacy did not have it in stock,” Harb said. “Stories like these inspired Lena’s mission to ensure no patient falls through the cracks.”
Lena Health’s AI proactively addresses patient clinical and social care needs by automatically scheduling critical follow-up appointments, coordinating medication management, and connecting patients to essential community resources. Lena’s AI unlocks substantial value for both providers and payers. Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) and Clinically Integrated Networks see improved quality metrics, increased shared savings, and improved patient experience.
Dr. Julia Andrieni, SVP of Population Health and Primary Care at Houston Methodist and the founder and CEO of Houston Methodist Coordinated Care (HMCC) stated, “HMCC ACO’s strategy to meet the needs of a vulnerable Medicare population is with Lena’s AI care coordination that has resulted in high patient engagement and satisfaction scores. Most importantly, we are transforming patient care by meeting Rising Risk patients’ needs which may otherwise have been unmet.”
Meanwhile, the hospitals reduce readmissions, drive in-network appointment revenue, and reduce uncompensated care by navigating uninsured patients to affordable and appropriate primary care like federally qualified health centers.
A key differentiator of Lena is its human-in-the-loop model created in collaboration with nationally recognized health systems in the Texas Medical Center — the largest medical center in the world. Harb emphasized, “Healthcare is deeply personal. We started with all human care coordination, which allowed us to capture millions of unique data points to create Lena. But we’ve maintained a culture that emphasizes quality and full case resolution.” As a result, Lena’s architecture enables a human to step in to fill the gap where technology may fall short or patients prefer the human touch.
Health systems using Lena have experienced transformative outcomes, including greater than 10X ROI driven by improved in-network appointments, fewer readmissions, and enhanced patient satisfaction. Lena empowers organizations to deliver high-touch patient experiences at dramatically lower costs compared to traditional methods.
The $2 million seed funding will enable Lena to expand nationwide, deepen capabilities to navigate community resource networks, and augment care teams by automating routine yet crucial telephonic tasks.
“The TMC Venture Fund is proud to support Lena’s powerful new model for care coordination,” said William McKeon, president and CEO of Texas Medical Center. “Their approach directly meets the challenges that patients and healthcare executives face daily, combining meaningful impact with significant operational efficiency. They are also a great example of the visionary solutions that are continually emerging from TMC Innovation.”
“Emergent Ventures is excited to partner with Lena Health as they use AI to address critical gaps in healthcare delivery,” said Ankur Jain, Managing Partner of Emergent Ventures. “Lena’s solution sets a new standard for efficiency and patient engagement, demonstrating how thoughtfully deployed technology can transform health systems and deliver meaningful outcomes at scale.”
For more information, please contact Lena Health’s Marketing team at, at [email protected]
About Lena Health:
Lena Health enables health systems and payers to scale care coordination and navigation support to patients that need it most, improving access to care and social resources within their own community. Lena Health does this through a telephonic AI care coordinator that can coordinate with patients, clinics, pharmacies, insurers and community-based organizations.
About Emergent Ventures:
Emergent Ventures is a Silicon Valley based early-stage venture capital firm that focuses on Enterprise AI and Cloud Infrastructure. Emergent partners early with high-potential entrepreneurs, leads seed rounds, and works closely with portfolio companies to help them get to their next milestones faster. Emergent’s team has been involved with 60+ venture investments over the past decade, including 7 unicorns and 19 realized exits.
About Cultivation Capital:
Cultivation Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in software technology, life sciences, agriculture technology, and geospatial technology companies. Since its founding in 2012, the firm has invested in over 150 companies and is recognized as one of the most active early-stage investors in the United States.
About The Texas Medical Center Venture Fund (TMCVF): The Texas Medical Center Venture Fund (TMCVF) is a $50M evergreen fund that strategically invests in early-stage healthcare companies aligned with Texas Medical Center’s mission to advance life sciences innovation. As the venture capital arm of the world’s most efficient life science ecosystem, TMCVF focuses on companies that can leverage TMC’s vast ecosystem while driving breakthrough advances in digital health, medical devices, and therapeutics.
About Caravan Health Ventures:
Caravan Health Ventures is an early-stage healthcare investment firm focused on Texas. They have built a strong network in healthcare, connecting with hospital leaders, leading venture firms, and talent. The firm prioritizes exceptional teams and collaboration, offering both financial support and valuable resources to address real healthcare challenges.
