In an era of increasing digital innovation in healthcare, Pharos, a Y Combinator-backed startup from the summer 2024 cohort, has recently raised $5 million in seed funding. Led by Felicis Ventures, with participation from General Catalyst, Moxxie Ventures, and Y Combinator, the funding marks a significant step for Pharos as it seeks to revolutionize the quality reporting systems within hospitals through artificial intelligence. Founded by Felix Brann, Matthew Jones, and Dr. Alex Clarke, the company aims to simplify the complex and time-consuming process of hospital quality reporting, giving healthcare providers more time to focus on patient care.

Addressing a Unique Challenge in Healthcare

The burdensome nature of hospital reporting to external clinical registries has long been an issue for healthcare organizations. For facilities focused on providing safe, effective care, reporting to registries like the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the American College of Surgeons is often essential. While these registries play a critical role in highlighting areas for improvement in patient care, fulfilling reporting requirements is time-intensive. Medical staff, including nurses, are required to manually extract patient data from electronic health records, a process that can take up to eight hours per patient case.

Pharos’ technology automates this process, drawing structured and unstructured data from electronic medical records (EMRs) to generate the necessary data entries for registry reporting. The result is a significant reduction in workload for hospital staff, allowing them to refocus on critical aspects of patient care while minimizing the administrative burden that traditionally accompanies these tasks.

Founders Bring Experience and Insight to Pharos’ Mission

Pharos’ founders have a strong background in healthcare technology. Co-founders Brann and Jones both previously worked at Vital, a startup focused on emergency room software, where they developed firsthand knowledge of the inefficiencies in hospital quality reporting. Dr. Clarke, who joined the team after completing a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence from Imperial College London, is also a medical doctor and brought insights into the daily challenges faced by quality assurance teams in hospitals. His experience with manual reporting tasks, which often consume hundreds of hours for even partial data sets, has helped Pharos design a product that is well-suited to meet these needs with AI.

Brann, the company’s CEO, sees Pharos as uniquely positioned for success due to the team’s combined experience in deploying AI in healthcare settings and developing solutions for medical data management. “We have five years of experience selling and deploying into hospitals, and we have top-tier AI talent,” Brann said. This dual expertise is unusual in the sector, where teams with experience in AI often lack the healthcare background needed to understand this industry’s specific demands.

Investor Support and Vision for Growth

Pharos’ seed round investors share its vision of reducing administrative burdens for hospital quality teams. Felicis partner Ryan Isono sees an industry that, despite its advancements in patient care, often lags in adopting innovations to streamline administrative functions. “Pharos has demonstrated the potential to save hospitals money and free up nurses’ time, which is critical for both care and cost efficiency,” Isono said. With few other startups addressing the issue, Isono believes Pharos is well-positioned to lead the way in this niche.

The investment will be used to expand Pharos’ workforce, which currently consists solely of the founding trio. In addition to hiring, the funding will support product development and sales efforts to ensure Pharos’ AI technology reaches more hospitals. This funding marks a promising start, and the company hopes to establish itself as a key player in a market it expects to grow rapidly in the coming years.

Aiming to Transform Hospital Quality Reporting

Pharos’ solution is a timely response to an unmet need in the healthcare industry. For hospitals striving to improve patient care quality, Pharos’ AI platform not only reduces the labor involved in quality reporting but also increases reporting accuracy. As hospital quality teams are given more timely and comprehensive insights, they can address issues, such as surgical complications, more quickly. The goal is to provide hospitals with real-time data that helps prevent patient harm, a core aspect of Pharos’ mission.

Pharos stands out as a promising innovator in the healthcare tech space, focusing on a unique, often-overlooked challenge. By simplifying and automating the process of quality reporting for hospitals, the company allows healthcare providers to refocus on patient care while maintaining high standards of care and compliance. With the backing of Felicis Ventures, General Catalyst, and Moxxie Ventures, Pharos is poised to grow rapidly, bringing efficiency to an essential part of hospital operations and enabling quality teams to leverage the full potential of patient data.