Agentic AI company Hyro closed a $45 million round of funding led by Healthier Capital on Tuesday, bringing its total funding to $95 million. The New York City-based startup aims to fill a conversational void in healthcare, where most chatbots fail and patient expectations continue to rise.
CEO Israel Krush said the company was founded in 2018 with the belief that healthcare should have AI agents that are as capable, reliable and responsible as the people providing care.
“We started as a small team in New York focused on conversational AI, inspired by my son learning causal behavior at home and now anticipating it, organically asking our car to 'Alexa, play music.' It's clear that the next generation will need easy, instant access to entertainment, services, and most importantly, healthcare,” he explains.
Kush said many patients want immediate access to digital-first care, but most health systems can't provide it. Most providers rely on rudimentary chatbots and siled applications that “cannot handle the complexities of the real world,” he said.
Hyro’s technology aims to improve this by automating daily conversations and workflows. Kush describes the company's agents as “artificial intelligence teammates” that health systems can trust to communicate with patients.
“We have created strong barriers around the contact centers of our partner health systems to protect staff from the volume of calls and chats,” he declared.
The agents can understand natural language, whether spoken or typed, and they can securely connect to a hospital's EHR and its scheduling and billing systems, Kush added.
When a patient requests an appointment, refills a prescription, or checks on their coverage, Hyro's agents either automate the task or hand it off to a live agent along with complete background information. Cush said they work via phone, text, web chat and mobile app, meaning patients can get help no matter which way they choose.
“We prioritize speed and time to deployment, with even complex voice AI implementations taking less than 120 days to deploy. We are also very focused on reducing the cost of ownership and limiting any hesitation or fear around AI agent deployment by adhering to the strictest safeguards and safety mechanisms,” he said.
Hyro's core customers are health systems and hospitals, including Intermountain Healthcare, Bon Secours Mercy Health, Hackensack Meridian Health, Baptist Health and Sutter Health.
Kush said that across its customer base, the startup has automated up to 85% of daily patient interactions, which has reduced contact center operating costs by 35-45%.
He highlighted Baptist Health as an example of a customer that achieved measurable ROI after adopting Hyro's technology. Aaron Miri, chief digital and information officer at Baptist, said Hyro's workflow automation quickly saved his health system “nearly a million dollars.”
Kush pointed to Intermountain's deployment as another success story. Within a year, Hyro's customer service staff reduced call abandonment rates by 88% and automatically handled 44% of repeat calls. He explained that 79% of visitors to Intermountain's website are now able to successfully self-service online.
In the market, Hyro competes with several players in contact center artificial intelligence and automation, including Microsoft's Nuance, Notable and Amwell, Kush said. In his view, many of Hyro's competitors are built around “shiny demos,” while Hyro is more focused on testing its technology against complex workflows and ensuring its platform has deep interoperability with systems like Epic and Salesforce.
“What sets Hyro apart is that we are purpose-built for healthcare workflow, rather than a general AI platform adapted to it. Our agents are deeply integrated into clinical and operating systems with production-grade interoperability, including EHRs and CRMs, and have built-in safeguards to protect health systems from any type of potential harm present in LLM proprietary deployments,” said Kush.
For him, Hyro is helping to drive a broader shift in healthcare toward artificial intelligence systems that can handle complexity, not just conversation.
Photo: Vertigo3d, Getty Images
