Confido Health Raised $12.5 Million by Selling AI to Private Equity First. Other Founders Should Take Note

NEW YORK — The phone at a busy doctor’s office rarely stops ringing. Confido Health, a New York startup, is betting that AI agents can answer it, and handle much of the paperwork behind it, without practices hiring more staff.

The company announced a $12.5 million Series A extension led by Z47, formerly Matrix Partners India, bringing its total Series A funding to $22.5 million, according to its Oct. 14 press release. Existing investors Together Fund and Blume Ventures also participated, and healthcare private equity veteran Justin Saks joined as an investor and board advisor. The extension follows a $10 million Series A led by Blume Ventures that was announced in September 2025, CEO Chetan Reddy told AlleyWatch. Fierce Healthcare reported that the extension was completed in February and announced this month.

What Confido Does

Confido was founded in 2022 by Reddy and Vichar Shroff. It started with voice AI that answered patient calls. Its platform, CareOS, now covers more of a practice’s administrative work.

According to the company, its AI agents work across phone, text, email and fax in more than 20 languages. They schedule and confirm appointments, verify insurance, handle prior authorizations, process faxes and referrals, manage prescription refills and call patients about open balances. Each completed task is written back into the practice’s electronic health record. Confido says it connects to more than 50 existing systems, so practices keep their current software, and that most go live in four to six weeks.

The company says it now works with about 3,200 providers at more than 1,500 sites of care in 27 states. Its focus specialties include ophthalmology and optometry, physical therapy, dental, and primary and community care.

These numbers come from the company. Confido reports AI handle rates above 95% on key workflows, added capacity equal to three to five full-time employees on average within three months of going live, and patient satisfaction of 4.55 out of 5 across about a million tasks. It also says it has grown 15 times since its last round, though it did not disclose revenue.

The Founder’s Origin Story

Reddy told AlleyWatch that the idea came from personal experience. When his wife was diagnosed with scoliosis, he saw how hard it was to get calls answered and clear follow-up instructions. Her doctor told him the practice simply didn’t have enough staff.

Before raising serious money, Reddy said, he spent 15 months visiting practices across the U.S. and working in their front offices. “Go sit where your customer sits,” he told AlleyWatch when asked for advice to New York founders without fresh funding. “That taught me more than any amount of capital could have. It also earned us early customers who then later invested.”

The Distribution Lesson

For founders outside healthcare, the most useful part of Confido’s story is how it sells.

Instead of signing up one practice at a time, Confido sells to private equity firms first. When a firm sees results at one of the medical groups it owns, it asks Confido to deploy at others. Reddy called this a “flywheel” and said it is a big part of the company’s growth. The press release describes the same model: selling to private equity investors first, then expanding through warm introductions to their portfolio companies once results are proven.

It’s a strategy that fits a market that’s consolidating. Reddy cited American Medical Association figures that private equity firms own about 6.5% of U.S. physician practices and corporate entities own about 30%. One decision-maker at a holding company can open the door to dozens of locations.

Confido’s pricing is also built to lower the barrier. Reddy said the company charges based on usage, by time or by task, with no platform, licensing, integration or per-provider fees.

What to Watch

Over the next six months, Reddy said Confido plans to go deeper into its focus specialties, turn single-group deployments into standards across private equity portfolios, and push CareOS further into back-office work such as prior authorizations, denials and payer intelligence.

The bigger question for Confido and its competitors is whether AI agents can be trusted with work where mistakes have real consequences for patients and practices. For now, the company has fresh capital and a sales channel that many startups would envy.

Entrepreneurs Of New York is an independent publication and is not affiliated with Confido Health or its investors.