The founders of New Zealand-based Carepatron, a healthcare platform used by providers and patients, say they are passionate about solo practitioners and small health teams. With that in mind, they built Carepatron, which helps reduce the amount of administrative work that practices need to perform and also automatically reminds patients about appointments to reduce no-shows.
The company announced today it has raised $1.6 million NZD (about $980,000 USD) in pre-seed funding led by Blackbird. The funding will be used to hire for Carepatron’s global team and on product and growth. It has clients in 30 countries, including the United States, and markets in Europe and Asia Pacific.
Carepatron is used by practices ranging from a solo practitioner to teams of about 100. It says its clients save about eight hours of administrative work each week by helping them manage tasks like booking, rescheduling appointments, responding to emails and generating bills. It is now used by 700 health teams, with about two-thirds of its clients based in North America and Asia. More than half of Carepatron’s usage is on mobile devices.
Carepatron was founded in 2021 by David Pene and Jamie Frew. Both were inspired by their life experiences. Frew helped his family with their community hospital as a kid, while Pene’s partner is a doctor who works with small teams and practices.
Frew, Carepatron’s CEO, told TechCrunch that “David and I were frustrated by the lack of progress and innovation across the healthcare software sector, as we had personally seen the impact of poor tools on our partner’s mental health and medical practices. We bring everyone together in an ultra-secure app with the tools and information they need to achieve better health outcomes.”
The platform’s core products are scheduling and workflow, client records and documentation, and billing and payments. Frew says it can reduce costs by 74% for its clients by reducing the range of software subscriptions and tools they require from nine to two.
“Because we are community-driven, we can massively reduce the cost of our platform with an average subscription of $12 month per patient,” he said. He added that even though Carepatron is in its early stages, it is already generating revenue and has been growing its customer base consistently since launch.
The platform reduces patient no-shows through tools like scheduling automation, including smart reminders, online rescheduling and built-in video options.
In a prepared statement, Blackbird principal Phoebe Harrop said, “By allowing people to access the experts they need, Carepatron reduces the frictions associated with getting timely care. We are really excited to support Jamie and David on their journey to supercharge hundreds of thousands of health professionals around the world with lovable practice management software.”
