Battery Ventures

IntroWarm

Check size: Series A (tracking earlier)Contacts: Olivia Henkoff, Caroline CulmoLast contact: 2026-01-13

Next step: Meet Olivia in NYC; re-engage as traction builds

Meetings

2026-01-13Meeting: Battery Ventures

Warm intro via Caroline (Penn/Huntsman connection with Michael). Olivia spent most of the call asking smart questions and validating our approach — she explicitly endorsed the FDE model, payer focus, and PDF-first product strategy. Battery is Series A bread-and-butter so this is too early for them, but they want to build the relationship pre-raise. Most useful thing: Olivia named Optera as an FDE comp selling to payers, 6-12 months ahead of us. Strong category fit, wrong timing for their fund.

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Meeting: Battery Ventures

Date: 2026-01-13 Attendees: Thomas Startz, Michael Yuan ↔ Olivia Henkoff, Caroline Culmo (Battery Ventures) Type: Intro Duration: ~23 min

Summary

Questions Asked

#	Question (verbatim/near-verbatim)	Topic	Answer Quality	Notes
1	"What were they doing historically for that use case and how did they come across you?"	Traction	strong	Thomas laid out the 3 buckets (prior auth, concurrent, retro), explained plan has 99% prior auth automated, concurrent is the gap, Wharton professor intro. Clear.
2	"How does the product actually work? Where does it start and stop?"	Product	strong	PDF/text upload, independent from EHR, works for outsourced UR orgs. EHR integration planned for client. Olivia liked circumventing EHR as "really smart."
3	"Is it going to be UI based or working in the background?"	Product	decent	Thomas: "I'd prefer UI, customer prefers background." Olivia validated background is fine — "stickiness will come from the savings." Slight hesitation but landed well because Olivia resolved it for us.
4	"Payer vs provider — are you going to stick with one side?"	Market	strong	Clear payer-first: bigger pain, more dedicated nurses, bread and butter of payer ops. Acknowledged providers hate it too but payer is the acute pain.
5	"Are there any companies you're thinking of as core competitors?"	Competition	decent	Named Latitude (Redesign Health) and Otter Health. Pivoted to "comp us to Palantir or McKinsey or Epic engineering" — aspirational but didn't name specific differentiation.
6	"In terms of fundraising, how are you thinking about the raise?"	Fundraise	decent	Bootstrapped, about to close first client, another in the wing, at capacity with 2-3 clients. "Not raising today but imminently, a few million dollars." Appropriate for stage.
7	"How are you planning on pricing? Contingency fee of savings?"	Business Model	weak	"Let them determine the terms... whatever contracting fee they want to give us." Too passive. Pre-dates the Tau revenue framework.

Concerns Raised

Organizations avoiding point solutions, moving toward consolidation post-scribe wave — procurement is "lumpy"
OpenAI and Anthropic starting to work directly with health systems — competitive pressure from foundation model companies
Implicit: UI stickiness concern (but Olivia resolved this herself)

What Resonated

FDE model — Olivia explicitly: "I actually think that's the smart decision in this category... if you don't have the FDE you're probably not going to get adoption or it's going to be much slower"
PDF upload circumventing EHR — "That's probably a really smart decision for you guys"
Payer focus — they understand the pain, Olivia tracks both payer and provider
Ambient scribe → upcoding → UM pressure — Olivia raised this: "There's so much upcoding that's already happening... utilization management might have gotten harder for them." Market tailwind.
Palantir/McKinsey comp — showed strategic thinking beyond point solution
Bootstrapping + first client closing — credibility signal

Our Commitments

None explicit

Their Next Steps

Stay in touch pre-raise
Meet in person in NYC when Olivia is back from SF
Referred us to Optera as a comp to watch

Investor Insights

Fund positioning: Series A bread-and-butter. Too early for them today but want the relationship.
Portfolio: Investors in Magnify (payer intelligence — payment integrity, medical audit, prior auth review). Olivia deeply understands the space.
Olivia: 6 years at Battery, ~80% healthcare. Evolution from admin → clinical → pharma → payer. Based in NYC, offered coffee.
Caroline: Early stage + growth, vertical software and AI applications. Penn Huntsman program (undergrad Wharton analog). Joined Battery earlier in the year.
Market view: Procurement is lumpy post-scribe wave. Organizations hesitant, want consolidation not point solutions. FDE is becoming the answer to adoption hesitancy. Backend > UI for RCM/UM.
Optera comp: "Slightly later stage, 6-12 months ahead, doing exactly what we're talking about, selling to payers, not UM but risk and governance." Best FDE comp we've gotten.

Interesting Moments

Olivia on upcoding: "Because of the rise in ambient scribes... there's so much upcoding happening... utilization management might have gotten harder for [payers]" — unsolicited market tailwind confirmation
Olivia on FDE adoption: "We're starting to see it more and more... a lot of people are coming around to the idea" — category validation from someone seeing deal flow
Thomas: "I'd probably rather comp us to a Palantir or a McKinsey or like an Epic engineering kind of folks" — good aspirational positioning
Thomas on market: "It's really hard for these clients to know which AI product to buy... they kind of are realizing that they can build things but don't know exactly how" — the FDE thesis in one sentence
Call started with Thomas troubleshooting VS Code memory issues — casual energy, not overly polished

Top Concern

Too early for their check — 'a click early'

Firm Profile

Stage: Series A (bread and butter), but tracks earlier
Focus: Early stage + growth. Vertical software, AI-powered applications, healthcare (~80% for Olivia)
Portfolio relevant: Magnify (payer intelligence — payment integrity, medical audit, prior auth review)
Key comp shared: Optera (FDE model, selling to payers, risk/governance, 6-12 months ahead of us)

People

Olivia Henkoff (ohenkoff@battery.com)

6 years at Battery
~80% healthcare focus
Evolution: admin → clinical → pharma → payer
Based in NYC, offered to meet for coffee
Knowledgeable and engaged — validated FDE, payer focus, PDF-first strategy
Shared market view: procurement is lumpy post-scribe wave, FDE solves adoption hesitancy

Caroline Culmo (cculmo@battery.com)

Early stage + growth, vertical software / AI applications
Joined Battery earlier this year
Penn Huntsman program (undergrad Wharton analog) — connection with Michael
Set up the intro

Interaction History

Date	Type	Notes
2026-01-13	Intro call (23 min)	Warm. Validated FDE + payer focus. "Right down the fairway" but too early for their check. Want to stay in touch pre-raise.

Status

Temperature: Warm — genuinely interested, staying close. "A click early" is standard VC framing to keep optionality — her behavior (comp sharing, market intel, in-person offer) says more than her words. Next step: Stay in touch. Meet Olivia in NYC. Don't wait for Series A — re-engage as traction builds.

What They Care About

FDE model adoption patterns (they're seeing it broadly)
Payer AI category (have Magnify in portfolio)
Whether procurement hesitancy is being solved
Consolidation vs. point solution dynamics

Notes

This was our first investor call (Jan 13, before all others in the system)
"A click early" is the standard VC move — don't take it literally. Her actions (comp, intel, coffee offer) tell a different story than the positioning
Olivia's Optera reference is the most actionable comp we've gotten — should research
The ambient scribe → upcoding → UM pressure narrative Olivia raised unprompted confirms the market tailwind