Toronto-based Wisedocs wants to become the leading platform for medical document analysis in the insurance industry.
Wisedocs provides artificial intelligence (AI)-powered medical document analysis software. The startup’s “bread and butter” is making it easy for organizations to work with medical records. To date, Wisedocs has worked primarily in the independent medical evaluation space, serving third-party assessment companies, but, recently, the firm has started to see “quite a bit of interest and uptake” from national insurance carriers.
“That’s really where we’ve expanded—we went for those enterprise deals … really, trying to help that entire ecosystem as a whole.”
-Connor Atchison, Wisedocs
Now, armed with $4.1 million CAD in seed capital and a “broader” vision, Wisedocs plans to chase more enterprise-level customers and fuel its United States (US) expansion efforts, as it looks to move into serving other segments of the insurance industry.
“Third-party assessment companies work with medical records, but there’s this entire other insurance ecosystem that also has to touch that same medical record,” Wisedocs Head of Revenue Jenna Earnshaw told BetaKit in an interview. “We’re having more and more conversations in the US and getting traction with actual insurance carriers.”
Wisedocs’ platform uses AI to process and understand medical documents in real-time, enabling organizations in the insurance industry to evaluate medical claims faster and more accurately. The company’s automated software allows customers to sort, index, summarize, and review unstructured medical documents like PDFs, JPEG images, and faxes. Wisedocs’ tech relies on proprietary machine learning models that use intelligent character recognition to analyze relevant documents.
The startup’s all-equity seed financing closed in February, and was led by Toronto’s Ripple Ventures, which previously led Wisedocs’ 2020 pre-seed round and 2021 seed pre-seed extension. The round also saw participation from new investors Toronto-based GreenSky Capital, George Papayiannis—former CTO of Toronto FinTech firm Vena Solutions—and startup veteran Tim Lett. The raise brings Wisedocs’ total funding to $7.35 million CAD.
“Over the past few years we’ve been able to work closely with Connor and his team as they’ve gained significant traction and solidified their position as the most cutting-edge solution for grappling with the messy world of medical docs,” Ripple Ventures founder and Managing Partner Matt Cohen told BetaKit. “Their software is broadly applicable for clients ranging from healthcare providers to insurers, giving the company ample room to continue its strong growth.”
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The startup automates what it describes as “one of the biggest problems in healthcare”—manually processing and analyzing medical records, a labour-intensive, traditionally paper and pen-based process Wisedocs says “can take hours, and sometimes days.”
Founded in 2018 as Bear Health Technologies, the startup rebranded to Wisedocs in August, when it also announced the launch of its new and improved product as well as its US expansion plans.
In a recent interview, Wisedocs founder and CEO Connor Atchison told BetaKit that at the time, Wisedocs was “really, really niche in one of those [insurance industry] segments,” focusing on third-party assessment companies, clinicians, and lawyers.
But since then, Wisedocs has seen 200 percent revenue growth and developed a better understanding of the broader insurance sector, and where Wisedocs might play within it. “It’s a bigger ecosystem,” said Atchison, adding that Wisedocs’ focus today is much broader.
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“It’s just a matter of understanding each segment and then expanding into that,” said Atchison. “At the core, the technology and the need and the solution is the same.”
Even within just the third-party assessment segment, there are also underwriters, adjusters, and case managers who handle medical records. “There’s a lot of individuals that have to touch this record across that ecosystem,” said Atchison. “That’s really where we’ve expanded—we went for those enterprise deals … really, trying to help that entire ecosystem as a whole.”
Speaking with BetaKit last year following its pre-seed round, Atchison said Wisedocs was looking to raise a Series A sometime in 2021. Instead, the company closed seed funding and is positioning itself for a “substantially” larger Series A round in the next six to nine months.
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For now, expanding its US footprint is a key focus for Wisedocs, which recently opened an office in Florida to support these plans. Since last August, the startup has grown its headcount from 12 to 25, and is looking to add another five employees to its team in the near future.
To support its growth, Wisedocs has made a slew of new leadership additions since last August, adding Atif Khan as CTO, insurance and healthcare industry vet Doug Markham as CSO, and Earnshaw, Railz’ former head of sales, as its head of revenue. Hoping to leverage his past experience building Vena, Wisedocs has also brought on Papayiannis as an advisor.
Wisedocs also recently gained acceptance to two sector-specific US accelerators: insurance giant MassMutual’s MassChallenge healthtech program and Silicon Valley-based Plug and Play’s insurtech accelerator.
Feature image courtesy Wisedocs.