General Catalyst-backed startups Commure and Athelas are merging in a deal to bring more artificial intelligence technologies to hospitals and health systems.
The new company, which will retain the Commure name, plans to stack Athelas’ software on top of Commure’s data platform for health systems. General Catalyst is investing $70 million in the new company, valued at $6 billion, and Tanay Tandon, the founder and CEO of Athelas, will lead the combined company.
Commure was co-founded by General Catalyst CEO and Managing Director Hemant Taneja and was launched by the company in 2017. The company provides a common data language for healthcare systems to facilitate tasks such as transferring patients from provider to provider. Athelas, founded in 2016, started by developing remote monitoring devices to measure things like glucose and weight, then expanded into developing software for tasks like AI-powered revenue cycle management to manage patient billing and insurance claims.
Together, Tandon said the companies are on track to reach $150 million in revenue by the end of the year.
One of the goals of the merger is to help both companies get to market faster. Tandon said Commure expects to go public in the next two to three years.
“It will of course become clear that this will be one of the big winners in healthcare,” he said.
He told Insider that Commure plans to grow significantly next year while working toward an IPO, including by acquiring other startups, developing more software tools for health systems and “aggressively” hiring across the company.
![General Catalyst Hemant Taneja]()
Hemant Taneja, CEO and Managing Director of General Catalyst.
General catalyst
Looking for offers
Both Commure and Athelas independently had at least five years of liquidity, Tandon said, giving the combined company significant reserves for further operations.
“With Commure, we’re going to be pretty acquisitive,” Tandon said.
The company will look for products that have native integration with electronic health record systems like Epic or Cerner, meaning the third-party tool connects directly to the EHR for easy data exchange. These integrations could take years to build, he said.
Commure will consider companies that produce these tools in a range of categories, including certification, contracting and patient engagement, he said.
He mentioned that Commure might be interested in acquiring a company focused on specialized remote patient monitoring, such as in-home monitoring technology for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which he said would “take a long time to build.”
Bring more products to market
The majority of Commure’s growth comes from two products: Athelas’ AI-powered revenue cycle management solution and Commure Strongline, a workplace violence prevention product that includes wearable “panic button” badges for healthcare workers . Both products saw strong adoption last year, Tandon said.
Athelas’ product lines, including remote monitoring and revenue cycle management technology, will continue to be available independently of and through Commure’s data platform.
“In an ideal world, this means our customers get entirely new features without any real transition costs or transition time on their part. It should be seamless,” he said.
The combined company also plans to introduce new features, including automated patient engagement technology that will use large language models to automate administrative tasks such as reviewing patient forms. Tandon said Commure expects to launch this product line before the end of 2023.
Expand the customer base
Commure wants to add more healthcare customers next year and expand the number of providers it works with on existing customers, Tandon said.
To support this growing customer pool, Tandon said Commure plans to hire aggressively, including for its sales department and engineers who will work directly with healthcare customers on tasks such as onboarding.
Commure plans to retain employees following the merger, bringing its total headcount to approximately 800. The company has about 100 open positions, Tandon said, and expects to hire hundreds more in 2024.
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