This London Startup Just Raised $100M to Untangle Healthcare's Messiest Problem

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-18

Imagine you're a doctor. You've got a patient in front of you who needs a specific procedure. Simple, right? Not even close. Before you can move forward, you have to figure out if their insurance will actually cover it. That means digging through a maze of payer policies that change constantly, vary by provider, and are often buried in dense, confusing documents. It's a nightmare that costs time, money, and sometimes patient care. That's the exact problem Penelope Health is trying to solve. And they just got a massive vote of confidence. ### $100 Million to Fix a Broken System The London-based company announced a funding commitment of €87 million—that's about $100 million—along with a partnership with HealthTech infrastructure platform Thoreau. The goal? Build a shared layer for real-time payments and clinical rules that any healthcare system can plug into. The funding came from Thoreau, plus existing backers like Bertelsmann Healthcare Investments (BHI), Twine Ventures, and Seedcamp. Penelope plans to use the cash to roll out new products that make navigating payer requirements a whole lot less painful. "The rules that determine whether care is covered by insurance are foundational to the healthcare system, yet they remain opaque, fragmented, difficult to interpret, and are constantly changing," says Dr. Sohum Patel, CEO of Penelope Health. "Penelope was founded to turn that complexity into a dependable, up-to-date reference that healthcare companies can use in real time." ### Why This Matters Right Now Penelope's raise is part of a bigger wave of investment in European healthcare infrastructure and AI tools aimed at cutting administrative workloads. This year alone, EU-Startups has tracked roughly €182.5 million across comparable rounds. That includes €86.5 million for Stockholm-based Tandem Health, up to €37 million for Berlin's Recare, and €4.2 million for Barcelona-based Health Force, whose AI agents handle prior-authorization checks and claims. In the UK, London-based Semble raised €34.7 million to scale its healthcare management platform, while Flexzo AI secured €10.3 million for agentic healthcare workforce tech. Clearly, investors see huge potential in fixing healthcare's back-office chaos. ### How Penelope Actually Works Penelope's platform does something deceptively simple: it takes the tangled web of payer policies and turns it into a single, structured layer. Healthcare companies can check coverage requirements, compare policies across different payers, and streamline their internal operations—all in real time. Instead of building custom, one-off connections for every payer or manually searching for policy info, they get one connection that any system can use. Right now, Penelope covers policies for over 200 million Americans, spanning more than 15,000 procedures and drug codes. "Realising our vision requires a deep technical understanding of constantly evolving payer rules," says Mattijs De Paepe, CTO of Penelope Health. "We are excited to build the infrastructure for AI to power a more efficient healthcare system. The opportunity extends far beyond any single workflow. We believe that a shared infrastructure layer can remove administrative burden for both payers and providers." ### The Team Behind the Mission Penelope was co-founded in 2025 by Dr. Sohum Patel and Mattijs De Paepe. Dr. Patel practiced in both inpatient and outpatient settings in the UK's National Health Service at the Royal Free London and University College London hospital systems. He saw firsthand how administrative complexity gets in the way of patient care. De Paepe spent nearly four years at Via Transportation, building machine-learning systems for transit products. Together, they're combining deep healthcare experience with serious technical chops. ### What's Next? With this funding and partnership, Penelope is poised to become a critical piece of healthcare infrastructure. If they succeed, they could dramatically reduce the time and money wasted on administrative friction—and that's something we all benefit from. For now, keep an eye on this space. The way healthcare gets paid for is changing, and Penelope Health is helping lead the charge.