AI holds great promise for healthcare, but not just on the medical side. Many startups believe that machine learning-based systems can bring a lot of benefits to adjacent tasks such as scheduling and confirming reservations.
Brazilian startup Carecode is one of these AI believers. The company has quietly emerged with ambitions to reduce healthcare costs and improve healthcare outcomes by developing AI agents that focus on tasks that occur before, during and after medical appointments, and typically Performed by a call center.
“We tend to think that the moment with a doctor is the only thing that matters, but after working in the medical field for 10 years, I have realized that that moment is what matters. [around the appointment] It's as important as the medical encounter,” CEO Thomaz Srougi (pictured above, right) told TechCrunch.
Although Srougi comes from a family of doctors, he is not a doctor himself. His first-hand knowledge of healthcare comes from founding Dr. Consulta, a private healthcare provider scale-up company that raised approximately $168 million in funding and of which he still serves as chairman. Masu.
Carecode is still in the early stages of fundraising, but already has an impressive cap table. The $4.3 million pre-seed round was mostly funded by a16z and QED, with participation from Endeavor Catalyst, K50 Ventures, and Latitud Ventures, as well as high-end companies. It brings together some of the biggest names in Brazil's technology industry, including Nubank founder David Vélez.
Venture capital in Latin America is still experiencing a “startup winter,” as this pre-seed funding highlights, as Srougi, his co-founders and several other companies There is still funding available for entrepreneurs with a proven track record, such as Pedro Magalhães, who was CTO at Startups like BEES Bank Brasil and Zé Delivery.
“I think this is very important for major VCs, especially when the world is in adversity,” Srougi suggested, adding that a16z partner Gabriel Vasquez matured the Carecode idea and took startups from the planning stage to the execution stage. He also mentioned that he contributed to the transition to
Srougi is also looking for partners to test Carecode, leveraging the relationships he built during his career. The startup says early results with unnamed partners look promising, but the results show that its AI agents can perform most of the tasks of a typical healthcare call center at a fraction of the cost. , which suggests it can go even one step further by proactively filling canceled slots while leaving employees to handle the most complex cases.
Importantly for Brazil, Carecode meets users where they are, usually on WhatsApp. Both text and voice messages are supported there. “This is very important because the elderly and the majority of low-income people prefer sending WhatsApp audio instead of typing,” Srougi said, adding that voice calls are also on the roadmap. He added that there is.
These localization adjustments are one aspect that sets Carecode apart from U.S. benchmarks such as Sierra, the AI startup co-founded by Brett Taylor.
Another difference is Carecode's vertical focus. According to Camila Vieira Freitas, QED partner and head of Brazil, this gives the startup an advantage over horizontal approaches, which “require multiple solutions to achieve substandard results.” “This often negatively impacts the customer experience and leaves important value untapped.”
While market size can be a limitation for vertical models, Brazilian healthcare is by no means a small niche market, nor is it the problem Carecode is pursuing. According to Srougi, Brazilian healthcare companies spend 50% of their revenue on contact center and administrative payrolls, about $100 billion annually.
Srougi and his team believe that entering vertically in a market with specific requirements, like healthcare, will help Carecode build a moat compared to more generalist competitors. , the startup may later diversify. “In the future, we may be able to move into the insurance space, such as life insurance and other medical-related areas. We want to use payments. We may use financing. So, that It all comes from healthcare,” he added.