Administrative costs eat up a quarter of the $5.3 trillion the US spends on healthcare each year.
Payer coverage policies, prior-authorization requirements, medical-necessity criteria, and coding rules are spread across thousands of sources and change continuously. This results in slow, costly admin work for healthcare teams, and delays for patients.
We believe that most of this work can be automated. We’re proud to have backed Penelope Health since their first round, and thrilled to see them close a $100M commitment led by Thoreau, with participation from existing backers Bertelsmann Healthcare Investments (BHI) and Twine Ventures.
Thoreau is building healthcare’s foundational compute, rules, and research infrastructure. Together, the partnership creates a shared infrastructure layer for real-time payments and clinical rules. Penelope will use this capital to build new products that bring administrative efficiency to navigating payer requirements.
Penelope was founded by Dr. Sohum Patel and Mattijs De Paepe. They started the company after seeing how much of the work in healthcare goes into determining what’s covered, rather than delivering care.
Before founding Penelope, Dr. Patel practiced in both inpatient and outpatient settings in the UK’s NHS, at the Royal Free London and University College London hospital systems, where he saw firsthand how administrative complexity interferes with patient care. De Paepe previously spent nearly four years at Via Transportation, building machine-learning systems for the company’s transit products.
“The rules that determine whether care is covered by insurance are foundational to the healthcare system, yet they remain opaque, fragmented, difficult to interpret, and are constantly changing,” said Dr. Patel, CEO of Penelope Health. “Penelope was founded to turn that complexity into a dependable, up-to-date reference that healthcare companies can use in real time.”
"The rules that determine whether care is covered by insurance are foundational to the healthcare system, yet they remain opaque, fragmented, difficult to interpret, and are constantly changing. Penelope was founded to turn that complexity into a dependable, up-to-date reference that healthcare companies can use in real time."Dr Patel ~ Penelope Health
Penelope turns that complex web of disparate data into a single infrastructure layer for healthcare. Companies can check coverage requirements, compare policies across payers, and streamline internal operations, with instant, structured access to payer medical coverage policies across the majority of insured Americans.
Will Bennett, Principal at Seedcamp added: “Sohum Patel and Mattijs De Paepe have operated at the highest level since incorporating the business last year and it’s been a pleasure to see the business flourish since the early days building out of Seedcamp HQ.”
“We’re particularly proud to back an incredible team that has been executing between the US and UK from day one, much like Seedcamp.”
“Realizing our vision requires a deep technical understanding of constantly evolving payer rules,” said Mattijs De Paepe, CTO of Penelope Health. “We are excited to build the infrastructure for AI to power a more efficient healthcare system. The opportunity extends far beyond any single workflow.”
Penelope is building the platform where those rules live. It replaces the custom, one-off connections and manual searches teams rely on today with a single connection any system can use. That removes work from both providers and insurers, and gives teams on both sides dependable data to build on.
This partnership funds Penelope’s next chapter, with new products, more insurers, more policy types, and continued investment in the platform. We’re excited to keep backing Sohum and Mattijs as they build it.