From Chatbots To Clinical Care
A growing number of people are turning to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other large language models for health questions, often finding that the tools provide useful medical information, and that shift has helped set the stage for a new startup that aims to move beyond advice and into treatment.
KJ Dhaliwal, who sold the South Asian dating app Dil Mil for $50 million in 2019, said he has been focused on gaps in the US healthcare system since childhood, when he acted as a medical translator for his parents. He said the rise of large language models offered a way to address some of those problems. In May 2024, he launched Lotus Health AI, a free primary care provider available 24/7 in 50 languages.
On Tuesday, Lotus said it raised $35 million in a Series A round co-led by CRV and Kleiner Perkins, bringing its total funding to $41 million.
An AI Doctor With Human Oversight
Lotus is designed to move past chatbot-style conversations and into direct medical care. The service offers diagnosis, prescriptions, and referrals to specialists. The company says it is building an AI-driven medical practice that operates with a license in all 50 states, carries malpractice insurance, uses HIPAA-compliant systems, and has access to patient records.
Most of the interaction is handled by AI, which is trained to ask the same questions a doctor would. Because AI systems can produce errors, Lotus said board-certified physicians from institutions such as Stanford, Harvard, and UCSF review final diagnoses, lab orders, and prescriptions.
The company has developed its own model that, like OpenEvidence, combines recent research with a patient’s history and clinical responses to produce a treatment plan. “AI is giving the advice, but the real doctors are actually signing off on it,” Dhaliwal told TechCrunch.
Limits Of Virtual Care And Regulatory Barriers
Lotus directs patients with urgent problems to the nearest urgent care center or emergency room, and it refers cases that need a physical exam to in-person doctors, according to Dhaliwal.
Relying on AI for a large share of medical decisions comes with regulatory challenges. In the US, doctors are limited to seeing patients in states where they are licensed, among other rules. CRV general partner Saar Gur, who led the funding round and joined Lotus’s board, said there are significant hurdles but argued that the telemedicine systems put in place during the pandemic, along with recent advances in AI, make the approach workable.
Gur, an early investor in DoorDash, Mercury, and Ring, said the combination of those factors allows the company to address many regulatory and technical issues. He said the effort is ambitious, but framed it as a practical challenge rather than an impossible one.
Capacity Claims And Competitive Landscape
Lotus says that at a time when primary care doctors are in short supply, its system can handle 10 times as many patients as a traditional practice, even when each visit is capped at 15 minutes.
The company is not alone in this area. Lightspeed-backed Doctronic is among the competitors building AI-driven medical services. Lotus is setting itself apart by offering its full range of care for free, at least for now.
Dhaliwal said possible future business models include sponsored content or subscriptions, but he said the current focus is on product development and patient growth rather than revenue.
Featured image credits: IO Health
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