Healthleap Secures $38M for Its AI That Alerts Hospitals to Patients Needing Extra Attention


Healthleap Raises $38 Million to Spot Undiagnosed Hospital Risks

Meta description: Healthleap raised $38 million to expand AI screening for malnutrition, delirium and other hospital risks across more than 50 health systems.

Tags: Healthleap, AI healthcare, hospital malnutrition, clinical risk screening, funding

A $38 million Healthleap funding round, learned exclusively by TechCrunch, will expand an AI platform that scans hospital records for patients who may have illnesses that often remain undiagnosed, such as malnutrition and delirium. The company aims to turn patient charts into early signals that care teams can review, helping catch conditions that may worsen recovery if missed.

The financing includes an $8 million seed round co-led by Sequoia Capital and First Round Capital, and a $30 million Series A led by Hummingbird Ventures. The company is not disclosing its valuation.

Background: From a Nutrition Tool to a Hospital Screening Platform

Healthleap was founded in South Africa in 2022 by siblings Jemima and Josiah Meyer. Its first product was a clinical nutrition tool that Jemima had built for dietitians. The startup later pivoted into a broader platform designed to identify patients admitted to hospitals who may be suffering from conditions such as malnutrition or delirium that are not often recognized early enough, CEO and co-founder Josiah Meyer told TechCrunch.

Malnutrition was a logical starting point. Research suggests 20% to 50% of hospital inpatients are malnourished, and some studies have linked malnutrition with longer stays, impaired wound healing, infections and other complications, as well as higher morbidity and mortality.

Development: Turning Notes and Vitals Into Nightly Risk Scores

Healthleap plugs into a hospital’s electronic health record system and uses language models — AI systems trained to interpret text — to pull information from written notes. Clinicians’ notes can contain early clues, such as poor appetite, recent weight loss, muscle loss, trouble swallowing, or difficulty swallowing. The platform extracts whether these concepts are mentioned or negated, then feeds that analysis into risk models alongside structured information such as lab reports and vitals.

Each night, the company says it analyzes every adult inpatient’s record: lab results, vital signs, weights, medications, diet orders, diagnoses, and clinicians’ notes. Each morning, it writes a risk score into the care team’s existing workflow through a dashboard that shows patient trends. The software does not diagnose patients; it only highlights items for additional review.

Latest Progress: Deployments, Customers, and Reported Returns

The platform is currently deployed in more than 50 hospitals, where it screens patients for conditions such as malnutrition and delirium. Healthleap has also built programs to identify aspiration pneumonia, pressure ulcers, and risk of readmission for congestive heart failure, which Josiah said are undergoing further clinical validation.

Josiah said Healthleap has grown from three hospital partners to more than 50 over the past year. Customers now include Penn Medicine, Cedars-Sinai, Intermountain, Houston Methodist, and Emory Healthcare. Revenue has grown more than 10x over the same period, though the company did not disclose specifics.

Healthleap sells three-year contracts priced according to a hospital’s licensed bed count and also uses an outcome-based pricing model. Josiah said the company uses hard ROI validated by hospital finance teams as measurable ROI and contractually ensures it delivers multiples of the contract price. He said every customer to date has seen a 5x hard ROI or more, in some cases over 20x annual total ROI.

At the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Healthleap says its malnutrition program resulted in $23.8 million in annualized financial impact. The company attributes $6.3 million to additional reimbursement and $17.5 million to shorter hospital stays.

Current Stage: Scaling Beyond One Condition

The fresh cash will support engineering, product, sales, and customer success as Healthleap adds support for identifying more conditions. Meyer said the company ultimately wants to cover more than 40 major health conditions and expand into outpatient and home care.

Next to watch is whether the additional programs — including aspiration pneumonia, pressure ulcers, and congestive heart failure readmission risk — clear further clinical validation and whether the hospital ROI pattern holds as Healthleap moves beyond malnutrition.