Understood Care Raises $8.4M to Scale AI-Native Infrastructure Layer for Patient Advocacy
As an aging population collides with a fragmented healthcare system, millions of patients struggle to navigate care alone. The company combines human advocates and automation to deliver affordable, personalized patient advocacy at scale.
NEW YORK, March 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Understood Care, the first AI-native patient advocacy platform, today announces $8.4M in funding, including a $5M seed round led by Rethink Education and Zeal Capital Partners, and $3.4M in pre-seed funding led by 1984 Ventures, with participation from Ycombinator. The new capital will accelerate development of Ava, Understood Care's AI co-pilot, and deepen partnerships with providers, payers, and community organizations, positioning the company to tackle one of the most persistent, costly, and urgent challenges in US healthcare: care navigation.
As America's aging population and disabled adult community confront a system that has grown increasingly nuanced, driven by expanding plan options, frequent policy changes, disconnected provider networks, and layers of administrative requirements, managing the non-medical aspects of care has become confusing, time-consuming, and overwhelming. For the more than 60 million adults over age 65, a population projected to reach 80 million by 2030, navigating care without support is often an impossible task.
"As a healthcare operator, I've seen far too many patients get lost in paperwork, blocking access to the care they deserve. This reality demands a new kind of infrastructure. Existing solutions were not built to operate at the scale, complexity, or level of personalization that today's patients need," said Sam Wu, co-founder and CEO of Understood Care. "We built the technology and payment model to deliver tailored, affordable patient advocacy at scale, bringing human support, hands-on problem-solving, and clarity to a system that rarely provides any of the above."
Understood Care combines dedicated human advocates with AI-powered automation to help patients schedule appointments, access resources, complete applications, coordinate care, and overcome the upstream barriers that prevent them from accessing critical services. Leveraging new CMS payment pathways introduced in 2024 to support care navigation and improve whole-person care, the company's services are covered by benefits for most patients, meaning the vast majority pay $0 out of pocket.
As payers and providers seek proven, easy-to-integrate solutions that increase patient satisfaction while controlling costs, Understood Care's scalable, compliant advocacy layer delivers on both fronts. By ensuring patients show up to appointments, access appropriate benefits, and resolve barriers like transportation, housing, and medication affordability, Understood Care reduces the overall cost of care while fostering meaningful patient engagement and trust.
How Understood Care's Solution Works
Understood Care's advocates serve as personal healthcare guides for Medicare patients. They come from backgrounds such as nursing, healthcare administration, and social work, and share a passion for helping people and a deep understanding of how the US healthcare system works.
Although advocates work remotely, they build close, ongoing relationships with each patient, following up until problems are resolved. The patient experience consists of video calls, phone conversations, and text exchanges with an advocate who knows their situation and genuinely cares about solving their problems.
What patients don't see is Ava, Understood Care's AI co-pilot, working behind the scenes to make their human advocate more effective, reduce their cognitive load, and increase their capacity to provide emotional support. Ava helps execute error-prone administrative work, such as:
- Initiating phone calls and waiting on hold
- Summarizing patient medical records and call transcripts
- Drafting emails, texts, and faxes
- Suggesting relevant resources based on what worked for similar patients
- Conducting web searches when internal data isn't sufficient
- Generating Medicare-compliant documentation for claims submission
Every interaction on Understood Care's platform feeds a growing proprietary, multimodal dataset (calls, transcripts, documents, workflows, resource recommendations, and outcomes), structured around the real jobs-to-be-done of patient advocacy. As Ava learns from each interaction, the platform becomes smarter, faster, and more effective, continuously improving the quality of support and strengthening Understood Care's ability to deliver personalized advocacy at scale.
"I've seen the urgent need for patient advocacy infrastructure first-hand as an ER physician," said Farzad Soleimani, MD, Healthcare Partner at 1984 Ventures. "Understood Care is tackling a massive, underserved market with an AI-native solution that genuinely improves people's lives during their most vulnerable moments. It's rare to find an investment opportunity that combines exceptional talent, enormous commercial potential, and meaningful social impact."
"Understood Care is setting a new standard for what scalable, AI-enabled advocacy can achieve in healthcare," said Bridget Duru, Vice President at Rethink Education. "The founding team combines deep healthcare operations expertise with world-class engineering talent to create the AI and data infrastructure that will make patient advocacy as ubiquitous as telehealth, while maintaining the human connection that patients need most."
"Navigating today's healthcare system is one of the most critical and overlooked challenges facing older adults and their caregivers," said Emily Zhen, Principal at Zeal Capital Partners. "Understood Care's AI-native platform is unlocking new ways to embed care advocacy directly into healthcare workflows and scale support across a growing care advocate network. We believe this team is uniquely positioned to transform how aging populations access and experience care."
Momentum and Looking Ahead
Understood Care has demonstrated exceptional early traction since launching patient care in March 2025, expanding its platform across all 50 states in just eight months.
Understood Care already supports thousands of patients, with active patients reaching out to advocates an average of five times per month and advocates proactively reaching out to patients an average of 11 times per month. Understood Care has credentialed providers nationwide and established relationships with three of the nation's largest Medicare Advantage plans, positioning it to reach the vast majority of eligible patients and putting the company on a path to support more than 10,000 new patients in 2026.
To learn more about how Understood Care is transforming advocacy from a luxury into a universal healthcare service, visit www.understoodcare.com.
ABOUT UNDERSTOOD CARE
Understood Care is the first AI-native patient advocacy platform, built to make healthcare navigation accessible for all Medicare patients. Its platform combines dedicated human advocates with AI-powered automation to help patients schedule appointments, access resources, complete applications, coordinate care, and overcome the upstream barriers that prevent them from getting the care they need. The company serves patients across all 50 states and bills through CMS-recognized advocacy codes. Founded by healthcare operations leader Sam Wu and serial technology entrepreneur Kevin Bailey, Understood Care is building the proprietary dataset and AI capabilities that will transform patient advocacy from a boutique service into universal healthcare infrastructure. Learn more at www.understoodcare.com.
MEDIA CONTACT
Tess Pawlisch
608-333-9788
[email protected]
SOURCE Understood Care
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