Healthcare AI Company Gets $550M to "Optimize" Kidney Patients Like Database Records

Strive uses "technology-enabled care interventions" to manage kidney patients, which sounds great until you realize algorithms are making recommendations about human lives. When their predictive models miss early kidney failure symptoms or delay expensive treatments to hit cost targets, real people suffer. Remember IBM Watson for Oncology? That cost cancer centers millions and gave shitty treatment recommendations based on synthetic data instead of real patient outcomes. Healthcare AI companies love talking about their success metrics but go silent about failure cases.

$300 million from NEA and friends plus $250 million debt shows how much money investors think they can make from "optimizing" healthcare costs. But "value-based care" often means finding sophisticated ways to delay or deny expensive treatments. When AI gets involved, the rationing becomes algorithmic and harder to challenge.

145,000 kidney patients across all 50 states are now managed through Strive's AI-driven protocols, with 6,500 providers following their "technology-enabled" recommendations. That's $5 billion in healthcare spending being optimized by algorithms that prioritize cost savings over individual patient needs.

20% cost reductions and 41% fewer hospitalizations sound great, but how did they achieve those numbers? Did they catch kidney disease earlier, or did they delay expensive treatments until patients got sicker? The five-fold improvement in preemptive transplants is genuinely good

• but what happened to patients who didn't get those transplants?

1 in 7 Americans has chronic kidney disease and 360 people start dialysis daily

• that's a massive healthcare crisis. Investors see dollar signs in Mc

Kinsey's "$100 billion in potential savings," but those savings come from real people who might not get the expensive treatments they need when AI algorithms determine they're not cost-effective.

Strive uses a "kidney hero care team" model where patients are paired with dedicated care teams including nurse practitioners, case managers, care coordinators, social workers, dietitians, and pharmacists. This team provides continuous support between nephrologist visits and coordinates care across specialties, addressing gaps that often lead to emergency department visits.

The funding will support AI-driven tools and analytics development, expansion into additional comorbid condition management (particularly congestive heart failure), and acceleration of partnerships with payers, health systems, and providers. CEO Chris Riopelle noted the company was "investing in AI before it was cool," using machine learning for patient stratification and care intervention targeting.

Strive is building predictive AI, agentic AI, ambient scribes, and generative AI with large language models across care delivery, administration, and operational efficiency. The company started with machine learning and analytics for patient stratification and is now expanding into more sophisticated AI applications to make their care teams more efficient and effective.

The company is profitable on a unit economic basis, according to CEO Chris Riopelle. Overall profitability depends on growth velocity, as the company is expanding rapidly. Riopelle indicated they are "on that path to profitability" but prioritizing growth in the near term.

CEO Riopelle said the company is not focused on an exit "at this stage" and is concentrating on growing the business. While acknowledging that being public would provide access to capital, he noted the company's ability to raise private capital and the changing market dynamics around public offerings.

Strive's customers include major payers like Humana, Aetna, Oak Street Health, and Blues plans. The company partners with commercial and Medicare Advantage payers, Medicare, health systems, and physicians through flexible value-based payment arrangements, including risk-based programs.

Strive is a key participant in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Innovation Center's (CMMI) Kidney Care Choices (KCC) model, specifically through the Comprehensive Kidney Care Contracting (CKCC) options. This demonstrates the company's alignment with federal value-based care initiatives and regulatory validation of their approach.

The company has already expanded into additional high-cost specialties such as congestive heart failure and plans to continue building out other comorbid condition management capabilities. The funding will accelerate this multi-specialty expansion while leveraging their existing technology platform and provider relationships.

CEO Riopelle stated they have "without a doubt, the strongest capital position in specialty kidney care" and believes this positions them well for continued growth as the market matures. The substantial funding provides runway for aggressive expansion and technology development ahead of competitors.