200 Million Patients, $100M Bet: The Startup Rewriting Insurance Rules

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-18

London-based Penelope Health just raised $100 million to fix one of the most frustrating parts of American healthcare — figuring out what insurance actually covers. And with over 200 million patients already in their database, they're not starting from scratch. ### The Funding Round Penelope Health announced a funding commitment of $100 million (€87 million), led by HealthTech infrastructure platform Thoreau. Existing backers Bertelsmann Healthcare Investments (BHI), Twine Ventures, and Seedcamp also participated. So what's the money for? Building new products that bring administrative efficiency to navigating payer requirements. In plain English: making it easier for healthcare companies to know what insurance will pay for, without drowning in paperwork. ### Why This Matters If you've ever tried to figure out whether a procedure is covered by insurance, you know the pain. The rules are opaque, fragmented, and constantly changing. Dr. Sohum Patel, CEO and co-founder of Penelope Health, puts it bluntly: > "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. Penelope was founded to turn that complexity into a dependable, up-to-date reference that healthcare companies can use in real time." That's the core problem. And it's a big one. ### What Penelope Actually Does Penelope's platform converts the messy web of payer policies into a single infrastructure layer. Healthcare companies can: - Check coverage requirements instantly - Compare policies across different payers - Streamline internal operations - Access structured data on procedures and drug codes Right now, they cover policies for over 200 million Americans, spanning more than 15,000 procedures and drug codes. That's a massive chunk of the insured population. Instead of building custom, one-off connections to every insurance company, healthcare organizations can plug into Penelope's single connection. It's like going from a dozen different power outlets to one universal adapter. ### The Team Behind It Penelope was co-founded in 2025 by Dr. Sohum Patel and Mattijs De Paepe. Dr. Patel previously worked in the UK's National Health Service at Royal Free London and University College London hospital systems, where he saw firsthand how administrative complexity gets in the way of patient care. Mattijs De Paepe, the CTO, spent nearly four years at Via Transportation building machine-learning systems for transit products. Now he's applying that same technical rigor to healthcare infrastructure. "Realising our vision requires a deep technical understanding of constantly evolving payer rules," De Paepe says. "We are excited to build the infrastructure for AI to power a more efficient healthcare system. The opportunity extends far beyond any single workflow." ### A Hot Space Right Now Penelope's raise is part of a broader wave of investment in European healthcare infrastructure and AI tools. This year alone, EU-Startups has reported around $210 million across comparable rounds, including: - $99 million for Stockholm-based Tandem Health - Up to $42 million for Berlin-based Recare - $4.8 million for Barcelona-based Health Force - $40 million for London-based Semble - $12 million for Flexzo AI The common thread? Using AI to reduce administrative workloads. It's a problem that costs the U.S. healthcare system billions every year, and startups are racing to solve it. ### What's Next With this funding, Penelope plans to expand its product offerings and deepen its partnership with Thoreau. The goal is to create a shared layer for real-time payments and clinical rules — essentially, the plumbing that makes healthcare administration work smoothly. If they pull it off, it could mean less time fighting with insurance and more time focused on patients. And that's something everyone can get behind.