Digital health · Care navigation
Memora Health
A text messaging platform that automated patient follow up for Mayo Clinic, Penn Medicine and more than fifty other provider organizations. Commure bought it in December 2024. What the deal was later reported to be worth says more than the announcement.
Thirty two thousand messages, one hundred and fifty replies
In April 2023 Memora gave Fierce Healthcare a number that summed up the pitch. Inside one health system running its postpartum program, the company said, more than 32,000 messages passed through the platform and fewer than 150 needed a clinician to write back.
Everything else was software. A two way text thread asked new mothers how they were feeling, sent the right education at the right hour, and used natural language processing to decide which answers a nurse had to see.
No app. No portal login. A phone number that texted back.
It sold. By April 2023 General Catalyst counted more than seventy healthcare organizations on the platform, among them Mayo Clinic and Penn Medicine.
The inbox that would not stop filling
The problem Memora aimed at is measurable and getting worse. Writing up its investment in April 2023, General Catalyst cited a 157 percent rise in patient messages to providers since before the pandemic, and provider burnout at 63 percent.
Patients leave an appointment holding instructions they cannot follow. Clinicians come back from clinic to an inbox that grew while they were in it. Portal messaging, the first generation answer, moved that volume rather than absorbing it.
Memora’s wager was that most of the traffic is predictable. Take the way a health system already manages a colonoscopy prep, a capecitabine cycle or a postpartum discharge, digitize those steps, and let a machine run the routine part. Sevak told MedCity News that about 60 to 70 percent of healthcare workflows can be systemized.
Two founders out of a Harvard lab
Manav Sevak and Kunaal Naik started Memora in 2017 out of Harvard Innovation Labs, then went through Y Combinator in the winter 2018 batch. It launched as a text based virtual assistant for discharges and follow ups, then widened into oncology, maternity, surgery and chronic care.
Sevak and his two co-founders landed on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for 2022. Andreessen Horowitz general partner Vineeta Agarwala joined the board alongside a $10.5 million round in May 2021. Transformation Capital’s Todd Cozzens joined alongside a $40 million round in February 2022. In April 2023 General Catalyst led a $30 million strategic round that pulled in Northwell Health’s venture arm and two more health systems. Total disclosed: $80.5 million.
From fifty logos to a sale
On December 20, 2024, Commure announced it had acquired Memora. Commure is based in Mountain View, was hatched by General Catalyst, and is backed by General Catalyst, HCA Healthcare and Sequoia Capital. It had merged with Athelas in October 2023 and agreed to buy the scribe company Augmedix for about $139 million in July 2024.
Neither party disclosed a price. Axios reported the same day, citing Commure chief executive Tanay Tandon, that it was an all stock transaction.
Ten weeks later Axios reported what the stock was worth. Its March 6, 2025 account, based on internal documents and eight interviews, put the sale at $30 million and said the then chief executive had shared a valuation of roughly $430 million.
Sevak had already gone. Fierce Healthcare appended a note to its December story confirming he had left and that Edward Elmhurst Health, an investor and early customer, was no longer a customer. In March 2026 Sevak announced Novitas Holdings, an investment firm built, in its own words, on experience gained at Memora.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Peer reviewed, oncology | PENNY-GI pilot at Penn Medicine, JCO Oncology Practice, April 2024. 40 patients on capecitabine. 284 of 3,895 medication exchanges and 13 of 527 symptom exchanges carried incorrect recommendations. Two authors disclosed employment or equity at Memora. Accuracy above 90 percent, with stated limits on generalizability, usefulness and scalability. | Public record |
| Peer reviewed, postpartum | Penn Medicine postpartum conversational agent, JMIR AI, April 2025. 290 patients over six months, 56 percent of them Black; 98.6 percent interacted at least once. Overall accuracy was 77 percent. One author was a Memora employee, one a former employee. | Public record |
| Registered trials | Three registrations name Memora Health as a collaborator: NCT06618144 (Penn, with NICHD, 350 enrolled, completed Sep 2025), NCT05940688 (Alabama, 40 randomized) and NCT06510075 (Alabama, 400 estimated, recruiting). | Public record |
| Fertility program | Penn’s Fast Track to Fertility, with results in NEJM Catalyst, raised annualized new patient access about 24 percent and halved time to treatment. Penn credits Memora with early versions of the texting program and says its in-house Way to Health platform now provides it. | Independent |
| Named customers | Mayo Clinic, Penn Medicine, Northwell Health, Boston Medical Center, Moffitt Cancer Center, Virtua Health, Intermountain Health, Banner Health and Aetna CVS, per reporting and releases from 2021 to 2024. | Independent |
| Platform metrics | Care team notifications cut by nearly 40 percent; average patient NPS above 70; 85 percent of inquiries resolved by the AI assistant. None is tied to a named site or a published dataset. | Company-stated |
| Growth | Sevak said in April 2023 revenue doubled and headcount grew nearly fourfold. Axios reported in March 2025, from internal documents, that 2022 recurring revenue was represented to investors as $20 million while actual 2023 revenue was $1.2 million. | Claim differs from reporting |
| Deal terms | Neither company disclosed terms. Axios reported an all stock deal on Dec 20, 2024 and a $30 million price on Mar 6, 2025. A March 2026 release for Sevak’s new firm says the deal closed in mid 2024, which does not match the announcement date. | Claim differs from record |
| SEC filings | No Form D notice for Memora Health appears in EDGAR as of Sep 23, 2026. All three rounds were reported through releases rather than filings. | Not found |
| Competitive standing | American Well still lists Memora Health, with Twistle and GetWell Loop, among digital patient engagement competitors in its Form 10-K filed Feb 2026. | Public record |
Read plainly: the clinical literature on Memora is real, small and candid about its limits. Two Penn Medicine papers, both with Memora staff among the authors, show a text agent patients use heavily and that is right most of the time: 77 percent accuracy in postpartum care, misfires in about one in fourteen oncology medication exchanges. The registry entries are collaborations, not company sponsored pivotal trials. What never entered the record was the commercial story, and that is where the reporting and the company diverge hardest.
What to watch
- Whether the POPPY Aim 3 trial in Alabama, still recruiting toward 400 participants, reports outcomes for the digital arm.
- Whether Commure keeps Memora as a named product or folds it into CommureOS.
- How many named health systems stayed. Penn moved its fertility texting in house, and Edward Elmhurst is no longer a customer.
- Whether either party ever confirms a price. The only figure on the record came from reporting.
In their words
“The processes we use in healthcare are years behind every other facet of our lives. Most healthcare interactions are cumbersome for patients and clinicians because existing systems were not built to deliver care continuously and efficiently”
Manav Sevak, co-founder and CEO, May 2021 financing release · Company release
“Of all modalities, text messaging has the highest engagement rates that we’ve seen,”
James Colbert, MD, senior vice president of care delivery, Memora Health, to Fierce Healthcare, 2023 · Independent
“We’re not labeling it because it’s purely strategic and not something we intended to raise”
Manav Sevak on the unlabeled $30M round, to Axios, April 2023 · Independent
“Part of our job is to see through cycles and not get over-optimistic or over-pessimistic”
Chris Bischoff, managing director, General Catalyst, to Axios, April 2023 · Independent
“We are thrilled to join forces with Commure to accelerate our mission of simplifying patient journeys,”
Kunaal Naik, CTO and co-founder, December 2024 acquisition release · Company release
“Investors and former employees in patient navigation business Memora Health were stunned when the startup was sold to AI company Commure in what appears to be a fire sale, after being initially led to believe Memora was a roaring success”
Erin Brodwin, Axios, March 6, 2025 · Independent
“We partnered with Memora Health on the early versions of the texting program; our in-house platform Way to Health now provides this service.”
Penn Medicine Center for Health Care Transformation and Innovation, program page · Customer
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordPilot Study of a Mobile Phone Chatbot for Medication Adherence and Toxicity Management
- Public recordA Conversational Agent Using Natural Language Processing for Postpartum Care
- Public recordClinicalTrials.gov NCT06618144, NCT05940688 and NCT06510075
- Public recordAmerican Well Corporation Form 10-K, fiscal 2025
- Public recordEDGAR full text search for Memora Health
- IndependentInside Memora’s surprise fire sale to Commure
- IndependentMedical AI company Commure buys care automation startup Memora Health
- IndependentCommure acquires patient navigation platform Memora Health
- IndependentMemora Health nabs $30M to scale up complex care management solution
- IndependentMemora Health raises $40M for complex care delivery platform
- IndependentExclusive: Memora Health inputs $30M for clinical automation
- IndependentWeekly Health Tech Reads, March 9, 2025
- CustomerFast Track to Fertility program page
- CompanyCommure Acquires Memora Health
- CompanyMemora Health Closes $10.5M Financing Led by Andreessen Horowitz
- CompanyMemora Announces $40M Financing
- InvestorOur Investment in Memora Health
- CompanyEx-Memora Health CEO Manav Sevak Launches Novitas Holdings
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
