The healthcare industry continues to grapple with overwhelming administrative burdens, with practices spending about 34% of their budgets on managing paperwork, phone calls, and outdated systems. Medical staff often find themselves caught in a daily struggle of processing referrals, managing documents, and handling patient communications, taking valuable time away from patient care. Medsender is transforming this landscape with an AI-powered workflow automation platform that streamlines healthcare operations. The platform processes and synchronizes data from unstructured sources like fax, email, and phone, while automating complex tasks such as referral processing and patient scheduling. Through its AI Medical Assistant MAIRA™, the platform has demonstrated the ability to reduce call handling by up to 80%, enabling same-day referral processing and increased patient scheduling. Already trusted by thousands of healthcare providers across all fifty states, Medsender is turning healthcare operations from a costly daily challenge into a strategic advantage.
AlleyWatch sat down with Medsender Founder and Co-CEO Zain Qayyum to learn more about the business, the future plans, recent funding, and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
Medsender raised $5M in a Series A investment led by Ballast Point Ventures.
Tell us about the product or service that Medsender offers.
Medsender is a leading AI-powered workflow automation platform for healthcare. It’s already trusted by thousands of healthcare providers across every state to eliminate administrative burdens. By leveraging AI to process and synchronize data from unstructured sources – such as fax, email, phone – it automates workflows and patient communications. It streamlines operations by automating complex tasks, too, like processing referrals, scheduling and answering patient phone calls. This frees up providers so they can focus on delivering the best care possible.
What inspired the start of Medsender?
I was in pre-med in college, started interning at a hospital, and began to see how broken healthcare operations were. Soon after, my mother faced a serious medical condition. I found myself driving between health systems over two and half hours apart to pick up paper and CD copies of medical records. I’d then sit in the waiting room an hour as staff keyed everything in. I felt there must be a better way. So, instead of going on to med school, I switched to computer science. I started working on a solution and it evolved quickly from there, especially when Salman Haque joined as Co-CEO.
How is Medsender different?
What makes Medsender unique is the way we leverage AI, not only to increase efficiency from a cost perspective, but also to improve the quality and timeliness of patient care. About 34% of most healthcare practices’ budgets go toward the time, personnel and antiquated systems required to manage administrative tasks alone. We turn operations into a strategic advantage and not a costly, time-consuming, daily slog.
Our customers now achieve same-day referral processing and schedule more patients. When using Medsender with MAIRA™, our human-like AI phone agent, they’re lowering call handling up to 80%. We also make it easy by providing a robust API and intuitive web interface, along with pre-built integrations for dozens of EMR/EHRs and healthcare apps. Ease is critical to internal adoption and success.
What market does Medsender target and how big is it?
Recent research projects a clinical workflow solutions market of $15.83B to hit roughly $30B by 2030 – that’s a CAGR of 13.58%. Medsender is used across the entire healthcare spectrum, including medical practices, hospitals and everyone in between. We see great demand from specialist groups in areas like dermatology, orthopedics, ophthalmology and more. Our customers also include pharmacies, health tech companies, SMBs and mid-market enterprises. That all being said, there is immense opportunity, especially when you consider the many entities that have legacy systems and really need to harness the power of AI.
What’s your business model?
It’s really pretty simple. We’re a subscription-based SaaS platform.
How are you preparing for a potential economic slowdown?
When you have limited resources, prioritization is key. We’ve always been laser-focused on capital-efficient growth. Every dollar is aimed at growing revenue. That’s the surest way to survive downturns, particularly because there’s also an increased need for greater cost efficiency.
What was the funding process like?
We were fortunate to be in a position where we didn’t have to leap into this: we could take the time to find the right partner. What attracted us to Ballast Point Ventures was that they understood our vision of both the company we were trying to build and the pain points we were trying to resolve. We were very deliberate in our selection and couldn’t be happier. The Ballast Point folks ran an efficient process and have been great to work with.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
Finding the right partner was the biggest challenge. We spoke to a variety of different investors, but as a healthcare company, we were really looking for a partner that was both intimately familiar with the medical practice landscape and the challenges of building a rapidly-scaling software platform.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
Foremost, it was our platform’s ability to resolve an industry problem and meet demand. They were also impressed with the capital-efficient way we achieved growth and success. They respected our vision and understanding of healthcare, and we respected theirs. The chemistry was right: They shared our mission of reducing the burden of administrative work so providers can focus on what really matters – improved patient outcomes.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
We’ll be deepening our AI with additional intuitive and powerful features. This will include even smarter automation to enhance patient intake, faster appointment scheduling, and insights to spur greater efficiency and care quality. We also plan on expanding our team across all positions – from customer success experts to engineers.
We’ll continue scaling our reach with healthcare providers and tech companies nationwide. This will grow a connected network that streamlines operations throughout the entire healthcare ecosystem. And, we’ll further leverage strategic partnerships, particularly with Ballast Point Ventures. They’ve provided invaluable expertise, guidance and connections, accelerating our growth and further empowering customers and patients.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Be laser-focused on growing revenue. Talk to as many customers and prospects as you can to find the pain and build a product that’ll take it away. Do that right and success will follow.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
Right now our priority is expanding the team, significantly, and in a very short amount of time. From a product perspective, we’ll be doubling down on our automation and launching an entirely new version of MAIRA, our AI Voice Agent and virtual receptionist. It’ll be MAIRA 2.0 and she’ll sound even more human and deliver a tremendous user experience. We plan to introduce her in the next few months and are very excited – customers will be very pleased.
What’s your favorite winter destination in and around the city?
I grew up in the Hudson Valley: It’s very special and I love nature. I’ll head there year-round, and even though I can’t stand the cold, I’ll go hiking there in the winter: There’s fewer people on the trails and I enjoy the solitude. Salman, on the other hand, can’t get enough of Manhattan. He says it has a nice energy in the winter, there’s excitement in the air, even the tourists are happy. He loves to experience that energy, whereas I need the occasional escape, even if it means freezing a bit.
