Used in more than 50 hospitals, its software analyses care staff’s notes using language models to flag up malnutrition or delirium before they go unnoticed.
The start-up Healthleap, founded in South Africa in 2022 by Jemima and Josiah Meyer, has announced $38 million: an $8 million seed round co-led by Sequoia Capital and First Round Capital, followed by a $30 million Series A round led by Hummingbird Ventures. Starting as a clinical nutrition tool for dieticians, the company has expanded its product to detect pathologies often spotted too late in the hospital.
Connected to the computerized patient record, the platform analyzes the files of all hospitalized adults every night. The language models extract from the notes written by the caregivers the clues that do not appear in any structured field — loss of appetite, recent weight loss, swallowing difficulties — distinguishing between affirmed and denied mentions. These signals are combined with biological analyses, weight and constants to produce a risk score, delivered in the morning in the usual tool of the care team.
The software runs in more than 50 facilities for screening for undernutrition and delirium. Other modules — inhalation pneumonitis, pressure ulcers, risk of rehospitalization in heart failure — are still being clinically validated. Healthleap insists that it does not make any diagnoses: it simply designates the files that deserve a second look.
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