Health IT · Revenue cycle automation
Ember
An AI platform that codes claims, chases prior authorization and writes appeals before a healthcare bill ever goes out the door. Launched from Y Combinator as a surgical scribe, it has pivoted into what it now calls a revenue integrity platform for specialty clinics and health systems.
A billing manager's complaint, turned into a product
When Charlene Wang and Warren Wang launched their first product through Y Combinator, they were not pitching revenue integrity. They were pitching a scribe for surgeons. "We help surgeons automate medical scribing, patient intake, insurance letters, and more, all directly integrated within their EHR," they wrote in their Launch YC post. "We've helped our early customers bring in over $60,000/mo."
The company's second Launch YC post reframed the idea around coding. Ember Copilot, they said, helped surgery centers "automate medical scribing, coding, and billing," with an "autonomous coding solution" the founders said achieved 98% accuracy and cut denials by 55%. They quoted a billing manager describing a familiar problem: "We've got doctors that like to unbundle stuff, and not understanding that it's bundled, then you can't bill them separately."
The free tool that came out of that launch, ICD10codes.ai, still runs today as a lead generator for the bigger platform.
The problem it now targets
Healthcare denials are not a minor irritant. In Kaiser Family Foundation's July 2025 Health Tracking Poll, cited in Ember's own funding announcement, 73% of U.S. adults called delays and denials by insurers a "major problem." A separate American Medical Association survey of 1,000 physicians found 89% cited prior authorization as a contributor to burnout, according to the same release.
The company's pitch is that the rules driving those denials are scattered and inconsistent. Citing an unnamed academic analysis of more than 5,000 billing codes, Ember says only 3% were shared between all payers, and more than half were restricted to a single insurer. That is the gap Ember's software tries to close: tracking "unwritten rules not found in any database," in the company's words, and applying them before a claim is submitted rather than after it is denied.
Founders
Charlene Wang was previously a product manager at Google, where, according to Ember's own about page, she "collaborated with Elevance Health to develop remote patient monitoring solutions and led the launch of sleep-sensing technology at Google, improving the sleep quality of millions of users." A Fierce Healthcare writeup of the seed round independently described her as "a former product lead at Google Health for products such as Nest and Fitbit." She holds a degree in Applied Mathematics, Computer Science, and Economics from Brown University, per the company.
Warren Wang, the CTO, did explainable AI research at MIT CSAIL and medical AI research with NVIDIA at hospitals in Taiwan, the company says. He holds a BS in EECS and Physics and an MEng in EECS from MIT, and was a gold medalist at the 50th International Physics Olympiad.
From scribe to revenue integrity platform
By November 2025, the pitch had moved well past scribing. Ember announced a $4.3 million seed round led by Nexus Venture Partners, with Y Combinator also participating, to "expand its go-to-market team and accelerate development of its technology platform." Abhishek Sharma, a managing director at Nexus, called it "an enterprise-class solution with the disruptive impact of a startup." The release described named claims of a 57%-plus cut in denials and a 25% increase in net collection rate, credited to "real-world scenarios," without naming the providers involved.
Ten months later, in a September 2026 release, the framing shifted again, this time to "revenue integrity" rather than denial management alone. "Revenue integrity is much broader than denial management," Wang said. "The biggest opportunities often exist before a claim is ever submitted." That release put a number on customer growth: 433% in the prior year, with 100% retention, spanning nearly 100 clinics across 11 specialties and roughly 16 million transactions a year.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Seed funding | $4.3M, announced Nov 19, 2025, led by Nexus Venture Partners with Y Combinator participating. Reported independently by Fierce Healthcare, HIT Consultant, and The SaaS News, all restating company figures. | Independent |
| Total funding | Tracxn, an independent aggregator, counts $4.8M raised across two rounds, about $500,000 more than the announced $4.3M seed, implying an earlier, undisclosed round. | Independent |
| SEC Form D | No Form D found on EDGAR under "Ember," "Ember AI," "Ember Copilot," or "Wisdom Inc" (the byline on the company's own Nov 2025 wire release) as of Sept 25, 2026. Dozens of Form D filers named "Ember" exist, but none tie to this company. | Not found |
| Net revenue and collections claims | Three self-reported figures appear across time: the Y Combinator tagline says "increase net revenue by 16%"; the Nov 2025 release says net collection rate rose 25%; the Sept 2026 release says net revenue per appointment rose 9.3% and net collected revenue rose 5%. No independent source verifies any of the three. | Differs across releases |
| Denial reduction | Early 2024 launch material claimed 55% fewer denials at 98% coding accuracy. The Nov 2025 release raised that to "more than 57%." Both are company-stated, describing unnamed pilot customers. | Company-stated |
| Named customers | Midwest Vision Partners, Direct Orthopedic Care, and Elevate ENT Partners are named in the Sept 2026 release, with quoted staff from the latter two. Midwest Vision Partners is credited with finding "more than $1 million in missed revenue opportunities" in its first three months. | Company-stated |
| Unnamed customers, independently reported | Fierce Healthcare's Nov 2025 item states Ember's "growing roster of customers include the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs and one of the largest pediatric healthcare systems in the United States," without naming the latter. | Independent |
| Headquarters | Y Combinator, the Nov 2025 release, and coverage of it list San Francisco. The company's about page and its Sept 2026 release dateline both say Burlingame, California, a nearby city. | Differs across releases |
| Founding year | Data used to build this profile lists 2022. Independent aggregators Tracxn and GetLatka both list 2024, matching the Y Combinator Fall 2024 batch. No earlier filing or press mention confirms 2022. | Differs from aggregators |
Read plainly: Ember has a real seed round from a named lead, named specialty-clinic customers, and independent confirmation that it works with large buyers like the VA. What it lacks is a stable, verifiable number for how much net revenue its software adds. The figure on its own recruiting page, 16%, matches neither press release, and no outside source has tested any of the three.
What to watch
- Whether the company reconciles the 16%, 25%, and 9.3% net revenue and collections figures it has used at different times.
- Whether the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the unnamed pediatric health system that Fierce Healthcare cited are ever named or described in more detail.
- Whether a Form D appears on SEC EDGAR under the company's registered legal name.
- Whether a Series A or similar round follows the November 2025 seed.
In their words
“In my conversations with healthcare CFOs, one theme comes through loud and clear: we need to take the burden of medical billing off clinicians and patients.”
Charlene Wang, CEO and co-founder, Nov 19, 2025 funding release · Company release
“Ember's founders realized two big things about healthcare denials. First, the only solution is better technology. Second, AI won't get the job done on its own.”
Abhishek Sharma, managing director, Nexus Venture Partners, Nov 19, 2025 funding release · Investor
“The biggest opportunities often exist before a claim is ever submitted. By understanding what happened during the encounter, how it was documented and coded, what the payer requires, and how the organization should be reimbursed, providers can take action earlier to reduce risk and increase net revenue.”
Charlene Wang, CEO and co-founder, Sept 22, 2026 customer growth release · Company release
“We looked at a number of AI partners, but Ember stood out because it could identify opportunities for accuracy improvement in our coding and documentation that we might otherwise miss.”
Kashonna Morrison, Elevate ENT Partners, Sept 22, 2026 customer growth release · Customer, company release
“Denials can become a significant drain on our team's time, especially when there's a large volume of cases to work through.”
Samantha Martin, RCM Billing Manager, Direct Orthopedic Care, Sept 22, 2026 customer growth release · Customer, company release
Related companies
Sources
- CompanyEmber, Y Combinator company page
- CompanyLaunch YC: Ember Copilot, Instant ICD-10 Code Search
- CompanyLaunch YC: Ember Copilot, The AI medical assistant that actually works
- CompanyEmber AI homepage
- CompanyAbout Us
- CompanyNexus Venture Partners Leads $4.3M Seed Funding in Healthcare AI Startup Ember AI
- IndependentNexus Venture Partners Leads $4.3M Seed Funding in Healthcare AI Startup Ember
- IndependentEmber Raises $4.3 Million in Seed Round
- IndependentEmber Raises $4.3M to Cut Healthcare Denials by Over 57%
- IndependentEmber nabs $4.3M to help providers head off payer denials, in Fierce Healthcare Fundraising Tracker
- IndependentEmber, 2026 company profile and team
- IndependentEmber Copilot Revenue 2025: $330K Est. ARR
- IndependentEmbercopilot company page
- CompanyEmber AI Customer Base Grows 433% as Specialty Healthcare Moves Toward Proactive Revenue Integrity
- Public recordSEC EDGAR company search and full text search for Ember, Ember AI, Ember Copilot, and Wisdom Inc, Form D filings
- CompanyRevenue Cycle Automation and Denial Prevention page
- CompanyICD10codes.ai, Autonomous Coding and Prebill Audits for Healthcare
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
