Avant Health 🏥

Opening Remarks

This week, I found myself comparing two headline-grabbing wins: Wiz’s $32B exit to Google and Poppi’s $1.95B acquisition by Pepsi. Both are massive outcomes—but the real story is in the entry price.

Well known investor, Rohan Oza invested in Poppi when it was valued at just $1.6M. Even with dilution, his return likely rivaled—or even beat—Wiz’s seed investors (who entered at a $67M valuation), despite Wiz’s much larger exit. Why? Because valuation at entry is everything.

I’ll be diving deeper into this in an upcoming LinkedIn post (follow me to catch it). In the meantime, if you have any great stories on exits or entry prices, hit reply and let us know. Now, onto this week’s feature:

-Brett

Bulletpitch’s publication covers the hottest early-stage startup before being picked up by larger media outlets. If that’s you, apply here.

Setting the Scene

• Employers have two choices for health insurance: pay a fixed premium to an insurer like Aetna (fully insured) or take on the financial risk themselves in the hopes of paying less (self-funded).

• Self-funded companies hire TPAs (Third-Party Administrator) to manage the backend—claims, compliance, care coordination, customer service—but most are clunky, expensive, and run on outdated tech.

• This week’s company is replacing the TPA with AI to automate operations, personalize plans, and cut costs for employers.

In a Sentence

Avant Health is an AI-native benefits administrator replacing TPAs and their outdated tooling stack to help employers offer smarter, cheaper, more personalized healthcare plans.

• TPAs: Third-Party Administrators handle the backend of self-funded health plans—claims, care coordination, compliance —but most rely on tech, workflows, and vendors that drive up costs and complexity.

• Tooling Stack: They’ve rebuilt every piece of the TPA—claims, care, compliance—in-house instead of duct-taping third-party tools.

• Smarter, Cheaper, Personalized: Avant uses AI to analyze past claims, employee health patterns, and cost data to design plans that steer people to affordable care and reduce unnecessary spending—without sacrificing quality.

The Basics

• Industry: HealthTech

• Headquarters: Chicago, IL

• Year Founded: 2024

• Employee Count: 5

• Investors: Hustle Fund, Celtic House, Hat-trick Capital, Grant Park Ventures, and others.

• Amount Raised: $1M

• Business Model: Per employee per month

• Early Traction: Created a fully licensed and compliant insurer stack, launched with the 5th largest insurance brokerage in the world, built 15+ digital health ecosystem partnerships in the last 4 months, etc.

Event Board

• Seed Round Supper, NYC: On April 10th, we are hosting a 3 course meal in a stunning NYC penthouse for founders (pre-seed-Series A). Apply HERE.

Note: Spots are limited. If you apply and aren’t approved for a dinner, we will try to get you to a future event.

Weekly Feature Continued

Due Diligence

WHAT WE LIKE

• Market Opportunity: The global insurance third-party administrators (TPAs) market reached a value of nearly $342.52B in 2024.

• Margin Unlock: By owning the full tech stack and automating core workflows with AI agents, Avant can scale with better margins than legacy TPAs (50%+ vs. industry norm of ~10%).

• Legislative Tailwinds: New mandates around price transparency and fiduciary liability are forcing employers to act—Avant’s AI-native platform delivers the compliance, cost control, and scale legacy TPAs can’t.

POTENTIAL RISKS

• Regulatory & AI Risk: Navigating healthcare compliance while relying on AI introduces both legal liability and potential for trust-damaging errors.

• Distribution Hurdle: Success depends on locking in broker partnerships early—without them, scaling into fragmented employer markets gets a lot harder.

• Sales Cycle Drag: Selling into mid-market employers and brokers can involve long sales cycles and procurement hurdles, especially in a conservative, risk-averse industry.

Founder Profile

• Sid Sinha, CEO: Spearheaded $10M+ ARR healthcare AI products in 2 years.

• John Zicker, CTO: Previously CTO at multiple successful VC-backed exits.

Comps

• Yuzu Health: Backed by Sarona Ventures, Altman Capital, and others.

• TrueClaim: Backed by Dreamit Ventures and others.

Cast Your Vote

Last Week Today

• The Results Are In: Relm, an AI-powered marketplace that provides a commission-free platform for renters and buyers discover and acquire homes was favored in last week’s poll.

• Subscriber Feedback: “I was wondering when we would see technology like this to cut out those unnecessary broker fees. This company has huge potential.”