This London Startup Just Covered 200 Million Americans

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-18

What if the biggest headache in American healthcare isn't the medicine, but the paperwork? That's the question a London startup called Penelope Health is trying to answer. And investors just bet big on them. ### A $100 Million Bet on Fixing Healthcare's Rulebook Penelope Health announced a funding commitment of €87 million—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. In plain English: they're trying to make sense of the messy, ever-changing rules that decide whether your care gets covered. The round was led by Thoreau, with existing backers Bertelsmann Healthcare Investments (BHI), Twine Ventures, and Seedcamp chipping in. The money will go toward new products that bring some sanity to navigating payer requirements. "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 This funding lands amid a wave of 2026 investment in European healthcare infrastructure and AI tools aimed at cutting administrative workloads. It's not just Penelope. EU-Startups has tracked roughly €182.5 million across comparable rounds this year. That includes €86.5 million for Stockholm-based Tandem Health, up to €37 million for Berlin-based Recare, and €4.2 million for Barcelona-based Health Force, whose AI agents handle hospital-insurance processes like 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 technology. ### From Hospital Halls to Startup Hustle Penelope was co-founded in 2025 by Dr. Sohum Patel and Mattijs De Paepe, the company's CTO. Before starting Penelope, Dr. Patel worked in both inpatient and outpatient settings in the UK's National Health Service at the Royal Free London and University College London hospital systems. There, he saw firsthand how administrative complexity gets in the way of patient care. Mattijs spent nearly four years at Via Transportation, where he built machine-learning systems for the company's transit products. Now he's applying that same brainpower to healthcare. "Realising our vision requires a deep technical understanding of constantly evolving payer rules," says De Paepe. "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." ### What Penelope Actually Does Penelope converts the complex web of disparate data into a single infrastructure layer for healthcare. Their platform lets healthcare companies check coverage requirements, compare policies across payers, and streamline internal operations. It provides instant, structured access to payer medical coverage policies across the majority of insured Americans. Instead of custom, one-off connections and manual searches for policy information, it's a single connection any system can use. Right now, Penelope's platform covers policies for over 200 million Americans, spanning more than 15,000 procedures and drug codes. That's a lot of ground covered for a company that's barely a year old. The post originally appeared on EU-Startups, but the implications stretch far beyond Europe. If Penelope can crack the code on America's byzantine insurance rules, it could be a game-changer for everyone from hospitals to startups. And with $100 million behind them, they've got plenty of fuel to try.