Jon Wang and Jeff Liu met dozens of prospective cofounders—until they met each other.
Wang had left medical school years earlier to pursue a startup career, while Liu was a former Facebook engineer. They were looking to begin their lives anew as founders of their own startup, and lived more than 2,500 miles apart, with Liu in San Francisco and Wang in New York.
They started to think they could be a match, looking at First Round Capital’s “cofounder dating” questionnaire. Questions include everything from: “Can one cofounder fire another cofounder? Can someone else fire a founder?” to “How do you cope with stress?”
“Jon and I were both ‘cofounder dating’ at this point, and had tried working with several people,” said Liu. “I do think it’s similar to dating in real life, where you kind of just know and it doesn’t take that long to realize ‘this can work.’”
Wang and Liu decided to lock it in, fusing their experiences in AI and medicine. In 2023, they cofounded Assort Health, a startup building voice AI agents for healthcare. Two years later, the company has made the Series A leap: Assort Health has raised a $22 million Series A, led by First Round Capital and Chemistry, with participation from Quiet Capital. This brings Assort’s total capital raised to $26 million. The company, which says it manages millions of calls annually, is looking to answer the question: What if patient scheduling phone trees weren’t terrible?
Kemuel Carey, CEO of Peninsula Orthopaedic Associates, said that before his Salisbury, Md.-based office brought on Assort, patients who called in could be waiting on hold for 30 minutes or longer.
“Or worse, they’d just show up in person to schedule because they couldn’t get through,” Carey said via email. “With Assort, the difference has been night and day. Hold times are down to about a minute. Scheduling accuracy is up significantly…We even ran a blind survey recently, and our patients gave the AI agent a 4+ out of 5 star rating—a surprise, as we expected significant resistance to the technology in our region.”
Assort is among a growing wave of AI startups operating in healthcare that seem to be gaining traction. It’s a complex area (Liu said that privacy and HIPAA are “table stakes” for Assort). But the success of companies like Abridge suggest that there’s room for innovation in healthcare right now, even at a tense time for the system overall. Assort is not disclosing revenue, but told Fortune it has seen revenue grow by 8x since Q4 2024.
“It’s early for this company,” said Bill Trenchard, partner at First Round. “They’re one of the fastest-growing companies we’ve ever had, including Uber or Roblox. It’s such a pain point for clinics and it shows how well they’re adopting the solution so quickly.”
For Kristina Shen, managing partner and cofounder at Chemistry, Assort marks a milestone—her first (and Chemistry’s first announced) investment since she left Andreessen Horowitz to join up with Bessemer’s Ethan Kurzweil and Index’s Mark Goldberg. The three started the buzzy new firm last year, and Shen sees the Assort investment as a critical statement about the new firm’s ethos. Though she, Kurzweil, and Goldberg have recently been wondering if they’ve been too picky, Assort was unanimous.
“I’ve been investing now for 12 years,” said Shen. “But starting a new firm, it sets high expectations and such a high bar for your first deal. I’m choosing the world where I’m going to be an incredible investor and Chemistry is going to be successful. So though the bar was high for me, you know how people talk about vibe coding? I think there’s also vibe investing. You know when it feels right.”
Sometimes, when you know, you know. It’s not lost on Liu and Wang that First Round—which made the questionnaire that they used to find each other—is now an investor. And as they funnel the proceeds from this Series A into hiring efforts, that questionnaire still has a place at Assort.
“Every single employee at our company now fills out this exact same questionnaire,” said Wang. “This early, you’re basically a cofounder. You’re part of the founding team on this critical mission, and we only want to hire people who believe in that.”
ICYMI…Figma has confidentially filed its S-1 despite Wall Street turbulence. Elsewhere, Founders Fund reportedly has raised a $4.6 billion fund, while OpenAI reportedly is looking at building its own social network.
See you tomorrow,
Allie Garfinkle
X: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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VENTURE DEALS
- Attovia Therapeutics, a San Carlos, Calif.-based immune-mediated diseases treatments developer, raised $90 million in Series C funding. Deep Track Capital led the round and was joined by Vida Ventures, Sanofi Ventures, Mirae Asset Capital Life Science, existing investors Frazier Life Sciences, venBio, Goldman Sachs Alternatives, and others.
- Stitch, a Cape Town, South Africa-based payments infrastructure platform, raised $55 million in Series C funding. QED Investors, Glynn Capital, Flourish Ventures, and Norrsken22 led the round and were joined by Ribbit Capital, PayPal Ventures, Firstminute Capital, and angel investors.
- Onfly, a Belo Horizonte, Brazil-based travel expense management platform, raised $40 million in Series B funding. Tidemark led the round and was joined by Endeavor Catalyst and existing investor Left Lane Capital.
- IUNU, a Seattle-based AI and machine vision technology developer for agriculture, raised $20 million in funding. S2G Investments led the round and was joined by Farm Credit Canada and Lewis and Clark Partners.
- Phantom Neuro, an Austin-based neurotechnology company, raised $19 million in Series A funding. Ottobock led the round and was joined by Actual VC, METIS Innovative, e1 Ventures, existing investors Breakout Ventures, Draper Associates, LionBird Ventures, and others.
- Doss, a San Francisco-based AI-powered enterprise resource planning solutions provider, raised $18 million in Series A funding from Theory Ventures.
- Optimum, a Boston-based decentralized memory layer for blockchains, raised $11 million in seed funding. 1kx led the round and was joined by Robot Ventures, Finality Capital, Spartan, and others.
- Blue Onion, a New York City-based subledger for retail and ecommerce brands, raised $10 million in Series A funding. Viola FinTech led the round and was joined by existing investors Y Combinator, Entrée Capital, Green Visor, and Vinyl Capital.
- Nexad, a San Francisco-based AI‑native advertising platform, raised $6 million in seed funding. a16z speedrun and Prosus Ventures led the round and were joined by Point72 Ventures, Carya Ventures, Umami Capital, Sequoia Capital Scout Fund, and others.
- Mindset AI, a London-based embedded AI agent platform, raised £4.3 million ($5.7 million) in funding. Edge VC and Pembroke VCT led the round and were joined by existing investors.
- telli, a Berlin-based AI voice agents developer, raised $3.6 million in pre-seed funding. Cherry Ventures and Y Combinator led the round and were joined by angel investors.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- Dastex, backed by The Riverside Company, agreed to acquire a majority stake in Conformat, a Rueil-Malmaison, France-based cleanroom consumable distributor. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Pearce, backed by New Mountain Capital, acquired JoeMax Telecom, a Fairfield, N.J.-based engineering, site acquisition, and project management services provider for the telecommunications industry. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Revelstoke Capital Partners recapitalized AOM Infusion, a Fort Worth-based infusion provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Tredence, backed by Advent International and Chicago Pacific Founders, acquired Further Advisory, a Pittsburgh-based management consulting firm. Financial terms were not disclosed.
EXITS
- Bertram Capital acquired APPLIED Adhesives, a Minnetonka, Minn.-based adhesive solutions provider for the packaging, product assembly, paper converting, and automotive markets, from Arsenal Capital Partners. Financial terms were not disclosed.
IPOS
- American Integrity Insurance Group, a Tampa-based residential property insurance provider, filed to go public on the NYSE. The company posted $204 million in revenue for the year ending Dec. 31, 2024. Sowell Investments Holding Co. backs the company.
FUNDS + FUNDS OF FUNDS
- Linden Capital Partners, a Chicago-based private equity firm, raised $5.4 billion for its sixth fund focused on healthcare.
- Ansor, a London-based private equity firm, raised £250 million ($330.6 million) for its second fund focused on buy-and-build opportunities.
