Healthcare IT · Patient communication
BrainHi
An AI phone agent built in San Juan to catch the calls a medical office cannot answer. Started after Hurricane Maria, it now runs on practices, hospitals and, increasingly, businesses that have nothing to do with medicine.
The call that does not get answered
BrainHi's own pitch starts with a number: 25% of calls to local businesses go missed, and 80% of the people who hang up never leave a voicemail. For a medical office, each of those calls can be a new patient, a no-show waiting to happen, or someone who needed an answer and gave up.
The company's tool, now branded Lara, answers the phone when staff cannot. It schedules appointments, answers routine questions by voice or text, and hands off anything it cannot resolve. On its current website, BrainHi describes itself as an “all-in-one AI platform” that automates phone operations for “patients, citizens or customers,” language that signals a business built for more than doctors' offices now.
The problem, out of a storm
In October 2017, Emmanuel Oquendo and Israel Figueroa founded BrainHi, weeks after Hurricane Maria knocked out power across Puerto Rico and, as Healthcare Brew reported, contributed to a collapse of the island's healthcare system. A 2021 study cited in that reporting found the storm associated with more than 3,000 deaths, and Puerto Ricans already had low access to healthcare before the hurricane, according to KFF's 2017 reporting. Years afterward, the region kept facing staffing shortages and funding constraints, per CBS News.
BrainHi's own account of its founding, published on its about page, describes a system with “the highest rate of medically disenfranchised patients in the U.S., fewer providers, limited access, and growing emigration.” A parallel18 press release from August 2018 put the founding problem in blunter terms: private practices were “seeking for new patients and income, but miss 25% of the incoming calls and 80% of the patients don't leave a voice note they can follow up.”
Two engineers from Mayaguez
Oquendo and Figueroa met while studying engineering at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, according to BrainHi's about page. They started the company while still students, and a few months later, as the 2018 parallel18 release describes it, “validated the value of their product in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, when the communication between patients and doctor offices became almost impossible.”
By 2022, Forbes' 30 Under 30 profile listed Emmanuel Oquendo Rosa and Israel Figueroa as founders, noting the startup was “on track to make $3 million in 2022” from AI-powered receptionists that schedule patient appointments. El Nuevo Dia covered the same list placement in November 2022, reporting the two as 29 and 28 years old in the Enterprise Tech category.
From Parallel18 to Y Combinator
BrainHi went through parallel18's Generation 4 cohort, which finished in March 2018. That August, it became, in the accelerator's words, “the first company founded and based in the island to be chosen” for Y Combinator. Y Combinator's own listing places BrainHi in its Summer 2018 batch.
Puerto Rico's Science, Technology and Research Trust, which runs parallel18, later folded BrainHi into parallel18 Ventures, a follow-up fund that matches private capital raised by graduating startups with stock or convertible notes. A November 2018 release named BrainHi among four companies set to receive a combined $225,000 through that fund's fourth round; the release does not break out how much went to each company. A 2020 update listed BrainHi again among the fund's portfolio companies.
The pandemic pushed BrainHi toward a new kind of customer. El Nuevo Dia reported in September 2020 that BrainHi was growing “crece junto con las pymes y oficinas médicas que necesitan adaptarse a las restricciones del COVID-19,” meaning it grows alongside small businesses and medical offices adapting to COVID-19 restrictions, not medical offices alone. By January 2021, the same outlet reported BrainHi had built a system to automate vaccination appointment scheduling for sites including hospitals.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Named customers, independent | Healthcare Brew reported BrainHi's clients include NeoMed Center, Ashford Hospital, Manati Medical Center and Mennonite Healthcare System, all in Puerto Rico, plus health centers in Florida and elsewhere in the US. | Independent |
| Named customers, company case studies | BrainHi's site publishes case studies naming Centro Cardiovascular de Puerto Rico y del Caribe, Hatimedik, Biologique, The Dental Gallery, NovaDerm, Orlando Holistic Dental Studio and plastic surgeon Dr. Roy Kim, plus La Hacienda Foods, a chain of gourmet food stores with no medical connection. | Company-stated |
| Shift beyond medical practices | El Nuevo Dia (Sep 2020) described BrainHi growing with small businesses generally, not only medical offices. BrainHi's current homepage markets to organizations serving “patients, citizens or customers,” and its La Hacienda Foods case study is a retail food chain, not a clinic. | Independent, corroborated |
| Accelerator record | parallel18 Generation 4, completed March 2018. Named in parallel18 Ventures portfolio releases from 2018 and 2020. | Independent record |
| Y Combinator | Summer 2018 batch, active status, team size 18, per Y Combinator's own company listing. | Independent record |
| Puerto Rico Department of State registry | No corporate registry filing was located during this research. | Not found |
| SEC Form D | An EDGAR full text search for “BrainHi” returned zero results as of September 25, 2026, across all form types, not only Form D. | Not found |
| FDA, NIH, NSF, PubMed, trial registries | No records under BrainHi in the parsed FDA 510(k), FDA PMA, ClinicalTrials.gov, NIH, NSF or PubMed data used for this profile. | Not found |
| Scale claims | BrainHi's site says its AI “has handled over 47 million conversations across the United States and Puerto Rico” and that it is HIPAA compliant and SOC 2 certified. None of these figures were independently confirmed for this profile. | Company-stated |
| EHR integration | BrainHi's own case study describes an integration with Open Dental, a dental practice management system, that lets its bot schedule appointments directly on a dentist's calendar. | Company-stated |
Read plainly: the independent record confirms BrainHi is a real, operating company with named healthcare customers in Puerto Rico and Florida, a Y Combinator batch, and an accelerator track record going back to 2018. It is not a regulated medical product, so there is no FDA or trial record to check, and no federal grant record either. The company's larger numbers, the 47 million conversations, the HIPAA and SOC 2 claims, and the exact revenue figures, rest on BrainHi's own statements or on a single Forbes line, not on public filings.
What to watch
- Whether BrainHi files anything with the SEC. As of this research, no Form D or other EDGAR filing under the BrainHi name exists.
- How far the shift from medical practices to general small businesses and government-style “citizen” use cases goes, and whether healthcare stays the core of the business.
- Independent verification of the 47 million conversation figure and the HIPAA and SOC 2 claims.
- Named customers outside Puerto Rico as BrainHi expands into Florida and other US markets.
In their words
“Our participation in YCombinator represents an opportunity to raise awareness of the company at an international level and to keep helping Puerto Rico's economic growth.”
Emmanuel Oquendo, co-founder, parallel18 press release, August 2018 · Company-stated
“During YCombinator, we acquired customers like Dr. Pedro Martinez-Clark, an interventional cardiologist in Miami, and Dr. Roy Kim, a plastic surgeon in San Francisco, who have validated that BrainHi is going after a global opportunity.”
Emmanuel Oquendo, parallel18 press release, August 2018 · Company-stated
“Puerto Rico remains to be the core of our company, but we work with health centers in Florida and in other places in other parts of the US.”
Emmanuel Oquendo, Healthcare Brew interview, July 2025 · Independent
“We're not only focused on the AI component but we offer a full digital front-door platform that serves as a host for all the communication that is happening.”
Emmanuel Oquendo, Healthcare Brew interview, July 2025 · Independent
“I don't have any front desk personnel so BrainHi is now in charge of all front desk operations.”
Dr. Elisa Rivera, The Dental Gallery, BrainHi case study · Company-stated
“Thanks to BrainHi, we tripled our sales in the midst of a pandemic!”
Jorge Bonet, owner, La Hacienda Foods, BrainHi case study · Company-stated
“Now that we are gaining a ton of traction and there's more eyeballs on AI, we're ready for this.”
Emmanuel Oquendo, Healthcare Brew interview, July 2025 · Independent
Related companies
Sources
- IndependentMeet Emmanuel Oquendo, founder of AI administration company BrainHi
- IndependentBrainHi
- IndependentBrainHi
- IndependentEmpresarios boricuas de BrainHi entran a la selecta lista de Forbes 30 Under 30
- IndependentBrainHi resuelve con tecnologia los turnos, ordenes y retos de operar con distanciamiento fisico
- IndependentBrainHi crea sistema para automatizar las citas de vacunacion
- IndependentParallel18 Ventures Co-invests in Puerto Rican and Latin American Startups
- IndependentParallel18 Ventures adds 4 startups to its portfolio
- Public recordEDGAR full text search for BrainHi, zero results
- CompanyBrainHi gets accepted in YCombinator, the most prestigious startup accelerator in the world
- CompanyAbout BrainHi
- CompanyBrainHi, AI for Healthcare
- CompanyOur customers, case studies
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
