Vantager & Claimable
Vantager — AI platform for efficient manager due diligence and reporting; Claimable — AI-powered health insurance appeal automation
Welcome to another edition of Open Scout—your 3-min weekly digest of standout early-stage startups, venture deals, industry news, and job opportunities—all in one place.
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Startup Spotlight
Vantager
What? - Vantager is an AI-powered platform designed to assist Limited Partners (LPs) with manager due diligence and reporting.
Key Features
AI-Driven Data Management: Vantager organizes and indexes data from General Partners (GPs) and fund managers into a centralized, intelligent repository, eliminating the need for manual document searches.
Intelligent Data Extraction: The platform uses AI and OCR technology to classify and tag documents, linking all information to its source for easier, more reliable decision-making.
Dynamic Dashboards & Reports: Users can quickly generate customizable, professional reports and dashboards that streamline due diligence and post-transaction reporting.
Target Audience
Pensions & Sovereign Wealth Funds: Manage and compare data across various asset classes.
Endowments & Foundations: Track investments while ensuring alignment with ESG and DEI goals.
Private Wealth Managers: Easily generate client-ready reports and updates.
Fund of Funds: Instantly process diverse data from numerous managers.
Family Offices: Simplify the processing of manager data for both small and large investment teams.
Essentially, Vantager leverages AI to make managing investments and generating reports faster, more accurate, and less burdensome.
Founded: 2024 in NYC, US
Founders: Mason Lender, CEO — Mason studied Data Science at Yale, published predictive models on VCs, identified $100M+ in leads at Google, and built M&A strategies at McKinsey; Nicolas Neven, CTO — Nicolas is an AI Engineer with a Master’s from USC and has previously built high-performance systems managing $10M+ at a proprietary trading firm.
Raised $$ / Backed By (Public Source): Pre-seed / Seed; Backed by Entrepreneur First, BoxOne Ventures
Claimable
What? - Claimable is an AI-powered platform designed to streamline the health insurance appeal process. By analyzing clinical research, policy details, appeals data, and your personal health information, it generates tailored appeal letters in minutes.
Why? - Navigating the complexities of health insurance claims is a significant challenge for many Americans. Insurers reported receiving 425 million claims in 2023, with 92% (392 million claims) filed for in-network services. Of these in-network claims, 73 million were ultimately denied, resulting in an average in-network denial rate of 19%. Out-of-network claims totaled 33 million, with an overall higher denial rate of 37%.
The appeals process for denied claims is often intricate and time-consuming, leading to delays in necessary medical treatments. Consumers rarely appeal denied claims (fewer than 1% of denied claims were appealed) and when they do, insurers usually uphold their original decision (56% of appeals were upheld).
Innovative technologies, such as AI-powered platforms, offer promising solutions to navigate the complexities of health insurance claims and appeals.
Further reading: Claims Denials and Appeals in ACA Marketplace Plans in 2023
Founded: 2024 Sacramento, US
Founders: Warris Bokhari, CEO —ex-Global Healthcare & Life Science Executive Advisory, Principal @ AWS; Alicia Graham, COO —ex-Senior Director of Strategy @ Ronin; Zach Veigulis, Chief AI Officer — ex-Chief Data Scientist, National Center for Collaborative Healthcare Innovation @ U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
Raised $$ / Backed By (Public Source): Seed - $1.7M; Backed by Humanrace Capital, Walkabout Ventures
Which early-stage startup should we feature next? Send us a reply. (Criteria: Pre-Seed, Seed, and Series A startups)
Money Moves
Open Ledger (San Francisco, CA): Accounting automation for small businesses raised $3M seed. Kindred Ventures led; joined by Blank Ventures, Adventure Fund, Johnathan Chang, and others.
Raspberry AI (NYC, NY): Fashion generative AI platform raised $24M Series A. Andreessen Horowitz led; joined by Greycroft, Correlation Ventures, MVP Ventures, and angel investors.
Clear Labs (San Carlos, CA): Next-gen sequencing platform raised $30M Series D from Counterpoint Global, Felicis, GV, and others.
Colossal Biosciences (Dallas, TX): De-extinction company raised $200M Series C from TWG Global.
Boardy (NYC, NY): AI networking agent raised $8M seed. Creandum led; joined by Andy Dun, Leah Busque, Sabrina Hahn, Andrew Yeung, and others.
Daash Intelligence (San Francisco, CA): Commerce intelligence AI for retail raised $5.5M seed. Bullpen Capital led; joined by GFT Ventures, Silicon Road Ventures, and Red Bike Capital.
Maki (Paris, France): Talent acquisition conversational AI raised $28.6M Series A. Blossom Capital led; joined by DST Global, Frst, GFC, and Picus Capital.
Loft Orbital (San Francisco, CA): Space infrastructure and satellite platform raised $170M Series C. Tikehau Capital and Axial Partners led; joined by Bpifrance, Foundation Capital, Temasek, and Uncork Capital.
Harbinger (Garden Grove, CA): EV company raised $100M Series B. Capricorn and Leitmotif led; joined by Tiger Global, ArcTern Ventures, Ridgeline, Maniv Mobility, and others.
LemFi (Maidstone, UK): Financial services for immigrants raised $53M Series B. Highland Europe led; joined by Left Lane Capital, Palm Drive Capital, and Y Combinator.
Nelly (Berlin, Germany): Healthcare administrative automation raised €50M ($51.6M) Series B. Cathay Innovation led; joined by Notion Capital, b2venture, Lakestar, Motive Ventures, and arc investors.
Prophecy (Palo Alto, CA): Data copilot services raised $47M Series B extension. Smith Point Capital led; joined by HSBC, Berkeley SkyDeck, DallasVC, Insight Partners, and others.
Shippeo (Paris, France): Multimodal transportation visibility raised $30M. Woven Capital led; joined by Battery Ventures, Partech, NGP Capital, and others.
HYPERLINE (Paris, France): Revenue management platform raised $10M seed extension. Index Ventures led; joined by Adelie.vc and existing investors.
Ranger (San Francisco, CA): AI software testing automation raised $8.9M. XYZ Venture Capital led $2.4M pre-seed; General Catalyst led $6.5M seed with XYZ, Founder Collective, BoxGroup, and others.
Nilus (NYC, NY): Treasury management AI platform raised $10M. Felicis and Vesey Ventures led; joined by Bessemer Venture Partners.
Reshop (NYC, NY): Refund process platform raised $17M. Matrix Partners, Sound Ventures, Woodson Capital, and Touch Ventures led; joined by others.
Phantom (San Francisco, CA): Crypto wallet raised $150M Series C. Sequoia Capital and Paradigm led; joined by a16z crypto, Variant, and others.
Instabase (San Francisco, CA): AI-powered unstructured data management raised $100M Series D. QIA led; joined by Greylock Partners, NEA, Andreessen Horowitz, and Index Ventures.
Coram AI (Sunnyvale, CA): AI-powered video security software raised $13.8M Series A. Battery Ventures led; joined by 8VC and Mosaic Ventures.
nexos.ai (Vilnius, Lithuania): AI model management platform raised $8M. Index Ventures led; joined by Creandum and Dig Ventures.
Tapestry (NYC, NY): Solana ecosystem social infrastructure raised $5.8M Series A. Union Square Ventures and Fabric Ventures led; joined by Stellation Capital, Slow, and Foresight Ventures.
Bolt.Earth (Bangalore, India): EV charging solutions raised $5M Series A+. Version One Ventures led; joined by Union Square Ventures and Prime Venture Partners.
On The Side
The foundation model divide: Mapping the future of open vs. closed AI development
DeepSeek’s AI Shakes Up OpenAI: Chinese lab DeepSeek has released new MIT-licensed AI models, rivaling OpenAI’s latest and stirring excitement among developers.
Boom XB-1 Nears Supersonic Flight: The XB-1 prototype hit Mach 0.95 in its 11th test flight, bringing Boom Supersonic closer to commercial supersonic travel.
Woolly Mammoth Comeback by 2028?: Colossal Biosciences expects the first woolly mammoth calves within three years as it advances its de-extinction efforts.
China’s Space Solar Megaproject: China plans to build a massive space-based solar array that could generate more energy annually than all the oil on Earth.
Nintendo has unveiled the Switch 2, featuring a larger screen, redesigned Joy-Cons, a wider kickstand, and an additional USB-C port.
Trump Moves to Delay TikTok Ban: President Trump has signed an executive order delaying the TikTok ban for 75 days to allow time for negotiations. In response to the potential ban, many TikTok users are migrating to the Chinese social media app RedNote, which has recently topped Apple's App Store charts.
Perplexity AI Proposes TikTok Merger: The AI search startup has bid to merge with TikTok US, allowing ByteDance investors to retain stakes.
Meta Announces 5% Job Cuts: Mark Zuckerberg informed employees of layoffs affecting low performers, with notifications set for February 10.
Who's Hiring
Polychain Capital — Research Associate - San Francisco
Decagon — Sales Development Representative (SDR), Business Operations, Product Marketing Manager, Strategic Finance, Product Designer - San Francisco
Headway — Growth Marketing Lead, Associate, Strategy & Operations - Remote, US
Rho — Software Engineer (Accounting) - Belgrade, Serbia
Anterior — Member of Technical Staff - AI Research - New York/ London, Head of Marketing - New York
Omnea — Full Stack Software Engineer - London, Founding US Customer Lead - New York, Commercial Associate - London
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See you next Tuesday,
— Kenneth (@kenfsal)
Vantager and Claimable are solving pain points most people don't even realize are massive inefficiencies... LP due diligence and health insurance appeals are both deeply complex but critically important, one for ensuring smarter investments, the other for fighting unfair denials. Great articles as always, Kenneth.