Meeting: Seae Ventures
Date: 2026-02-17 Attendees: Michael Yuan, Thomas Startz, Karlos Bledsoe (Seae Ventures) Type: Intro Duration: ~27 min
Summary
Cordial intro call with Karlos Bledsoe at Seae Ventures, a healthcare-specialist $80M fund founded by ex-BCBS Massachusetts team. Very strong alignment — their Q1 offsite flagged workflow automation in patient transitions of care as a hot area, which maps directly to what we're building. Karlos is routing us to their pre-seed MD (Erica) for a full team pitch + demo. Traction was called out as "pretty impressive for this stage." Competition is the main diligence question they'll need to work through.
Questions Asked
| # | Question (verbatim/near-verbatim) | Topic | Answer Quality | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "I'm trying to wrap my head around where exactly in the workflow you're stepping in... it's like a level higher than [prior auth]?" | Product | strong | Thomas walked through all three UM pillars (prior, concurrent, retrospective), explained concurrent focus clearly. Karlos followed immediately. |
| 2 | "Is Daisy a tool that the existing workforce inside of a payer would use, or are you an agentic employee taking an entire workflow and replacing it?" | Product | strong | Good pivot to FDE/white-glove model. Karlos agreed payers too slow for full agentic — validated our approach. |
| 3 | "From a competitive perspective, are you seeing any creep from traditional prior auth into the concurrent processes? Do you anticipate competition from well-funded incumbents?" | Competition | strong | Thomas: "We've never really thought about prior auth companies as competitors" — payer already automated 100% of PA. Real comps are consulting orgs + Palantir. Cohere/Cahir trying to get into concurrent for 2 years but hasn't landed. Strong differentiation via FDE requirement. |
| 4 | "Could you walk me through the uses for the raise... what's the path from here to Series A?" | Business Model | decent | 2 more technical hires + 1 sales (Cassie, clinical nurse). Get more clients across auth layer, billing cycle, workers comp, outsourcing groups. B2B FTE work + licensing/recurring revenue. Could have been more structured with milestones. |
| 5 | "The current pipeline folks including that Midwest payer — was that just you as a team going out and building that pipeline? Because it's honestly pretty impressive traction for this stage." | Traction | decent | Thomas: been at it 6-7 months, conferences, AI-native team in nuanced space. Could have been punchier with specific numbers/metrics. |
| 6 | "Revenue is still at zero but there's go-forward projections based on that pipeline?" | Traction | decent | Thomas explained proposal just went out last week, 3-6 month engagement, then commercialize. Honest framing. Karlos contextualized: pipeline stronger than comps but revenue trade-off is real. |
Concerns Raised
- Competition from Cohere/Cahir: Karlos said "I'm positive that question's going to come up" with the full team. This is THE diligence gate.
- Revenue at zero: Acknowledged as expected for pre-seed but noted as trade-off vs. pipeline quality. "Pre-seed like will oftentimes see low $100K or so in revenue."
What Resonated
- FDE / consulting-first approach: Karlos shared Manatt Healthcare partner quote: "There won't be any successful AI companies [in healthcare]. There will just be successful consulting companies." Said this has been guiding their diligence. Our model is exactly what they want to see.
- Concurrent review focus: Differentiated from "incredibly crowded" prior auth space. Karlos hasn't looked at a prior auth company in a year.
- Payer adoption lag as tailwind: Karlos confirmed hearing this from Blues Plan LPs — "they need to move on this."
- AI-on-AI dynamic: Payer AI vs provider AI framing. Karlos found it compelling even if "it feels kind of ridiculous."
- Pipeline / traction: "Honestly pretty impressive traction for this stage." Said being in payer contracting at pre-seed is stronger than what they typically see.
- Year-over-year shift: Michael's point about C-suite talking differently in 2026 vs 2025. Karlos validated seeing the same shift internally at Seae.
Our Commitments
- Meet Erica (Seae MD) at Viv conference next week
- Prep full team pitch + demo for Seae pre-seed team
Their Next Steps
- Karlos discussing with pre-seed MD (Erica) to schedule full team pitch + demo
- Karlos connecting us with Erica (will be at Viv conference)
- Analyst may also be at Viv
Investor Insights
- Fund: $80M healthcare specialist fund. Founded by ex-BCBS Massachusetts team who started and ran the in-house CDC there. Won't do FDA-regulated.
- Karlos's focus: Agentive workflows and pure SaaS. 2+ years with the team. Based in Chicago.
- Q1 offsite theme: Workflow automation was a hot area, specifically around patient transitions of care — directly maps to our space.
- Pre-seed vs. seed: Karlos initially took the call but is routing to pre-seed team. This is a positive signal — he thinks it's a fit for their earlier-stage investing.
- Erica (MD): Will be at Viv. Decision-maker on pre-seed side.
- Traction benchmarks: At pre-seed, they typically see companies NOT yet contracting with payers. Being in contracting is ahead of comps. Trade-off: comps usually have low $100K revenue.
- Manatt Healthcare: Seae vendor/partner firm. Source of the "no successful AI companies, just consulting companies" quote — this is guiding their diligence philosophy.
- Conference circuit: Karlos referenced JP Morgan, Health, and Viv as key events. Small world of overlap.
- Adoption view: Bullish on agentic FTEs broadly but believes payer adoption will be even slower for fully agentic workflows — validates our human-in-the-loop FDE approach.
Network Intel
- Avi Jayaraman (Wharton): Mutual connection. Did a fellowship with Seae. From Chicago. Very well connected.
- Sahil / Felicity: Karlos spoke with him 2-3 weeks ago post-round close. Seeing tailwinds on agentic vs traditional SaaS. Karlos found them via Princeton/Wharton connection while looking at workflow companies.
- Will Bramlett / Otter (Redesign Health): Karlos did diligence. Gold carding approach to prior auth. Ran into behavior change issues — payers not interested in gold carding. Liked the idea but "market wasn't there yet."
- June (HCM Wharton): Karlos saw her at HCM alumni event last fall. Praised her work.
Interesting Moments
- Karlos opened with the Manatt quote before even hearing our full pitch — he was already primed for the FDE model. Perfect alignment.
- "There won't be any successful AI companies. There will just be successful consulting companies." — Manatt Healthcare partner, shared by Karlos. Obviously hyperbole but captures the market sentiment perfectly.
- The payer AI vs provider AI dynamic genuinely resonated: "I think that's the world we're just going to have to live in, even though it just it feels kind of ridiculous to me."
- Thomas: "We're building it and it's kind of crazy to see this happening in real time."
- Karlos proactively said this is a "good one to get in front of our full team" — unprompted advocacy.