Good day. Independent agents vie with nationwide brokers for business placing seniors in Medicare Advantage plans. Startup Connie Health has secured $40 million in new venture funding to help the little guys compete.

Medicare Advantage plans are sold by private insurers and often provide benefits, such as dental and vision coverage, not covered under traditional Medicare. As of Feb. 1, just more than 35 million Americans were enrolled in Medicare Advantage, up slightly from February 2025, according to KFF, a nonprofit health policy research, polling and news organization.

Numerous insurance carriers offer Medicare Advantage plans. But because plans vary, selecting the best option can be a headache. Local agents are best suited to help seniors understand which plans offer the best options in their community, according to Connie co-founder and Chief Executive Oded Eran.

Typically, seniors enroll in Medicare Advantage plans through brokers, which earn a commission from insurance carriers. Commissions are regulated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Medicare Advantage brokers fall into two camps, Eran said. The first are independent brokers who form strong relationships with seniors in their communities, but lack scale and access to the latest technology.

The second are nationwide brokers with plenty of scale and technology but few connections to local communities, he said. Connie seeks to use artificial intelligence and its national reach to provide scale and technology to independent brokers.

Three former employees of primary-care provider Iora Health started Connie in 2019 and named it after co-founder Michael Scopa’s maternal grandmother, Connie Francis.

Read the full story here.

Note: The WSJ Pro VC newsletter won't be published Friday in observance of Juneteenth in the U.S. We'll be back Monday.

Predictive health. An Australian startup that says its AI-enabled platform can detect and prevent health issues before they become serious has raised $46 million from private-equity investors as it looks to expand internationally.

• Everlab’s platform ingests and organizes documents and data from doctors, specialists and pathologists, compiling patient records that it augments with real-time data from users’ existing wearable devices.
   
• Its proprietary AI analyzes the information to identify conditions that can range from the minor to—in at least one case—something as serious as a blocked artery.
   
• The idea is that traditional healthcare models often spot many conditions only when they are looked for, or when they develop into major problems. As well as leading to longer-term problems, this can place a heavy burden on healthcare systems already strained by aging populations and budgetary constraints.

Apollo Global Management and Neuberger Berman led a $780 million deal that allows Abry Partners to extend its hold of Centauri Health Solutions and gives earlier investors in the $1 billion-plus healthcare technology company a way to cash out. The firms are structuring the deal through a continuation vehicle, an increasingly popular tool used by private-markets fund managers to hold on to prized assets while giving earlier investors a chance to get their money out. Centauri’s payers business has tripled revenue and more than quadrupled its core profit since Abry’s 2020 acquisition, according to Nick Scola, Abry’s head of buyout funds. 

Funds

Pegasus Tech Ventures launched a $60 million corporate venture capital fund in partnership with Cyberdyne, a Japanese cybernetics company addressing challenges such as population aging.

People

QuantHealth, an AI clinical trial simulation startup, appointed Francisco Beca as chief medical officer. He previously held leadership roles at Merck and Seagen.

Triveni Bio, a Watertown, Mass.-based biotechnology startup whose lead program seeks to treat moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis, landed $65 million in Series C funding. Ascenta Capital and Janus Henderson Investors co-led the round, which included participation from Deep Track Capital. Evan Rachlin, managing partner at Ascenta Capital, will join the company’s board.

Radical Numerics, a San Francisco-based AI research lab building general biological intelligence, launched with $50 million in seed funding. Emergence Capital led the round, which included participation from Obvious Ventures and others.

Vedana Therapeutics, a Seattle-based startup developing therapies for migraine prevention, emerged from stealth with $46 million in Series A financing. Westlake BioPartners and Canaan Partners co-led the round, which included contributions from Dawn Biopharma.

Rejoni, a Bedford, Mass.-based startup focused on uterine health, secured a $25 million investment from Catalyst Health Ventures and others.

Gero, a startup developing therapeutics targeting age-related diseases and the biology of aging itself, picked up $17 million in new funding led by Melnichek Investments. The company is based in Singapore and San Francisco.

Clair Health, a San Francisco-based startup developing a noninvasive continuous hormone monitor for women, closed a new seed investment, bringing the total funding raised to date to $11.6 million. Khosla Ventures led the round, which saw participation from a16z speedrun, Cartan Capital and others.

Icarus Medical, a Charlottesville, Va.-based startup focused on advancing orthopedic bracing technology, completed a $7.2 million Series A round from investors including Riptide Ventures.

Vali Health, a San Francisco-based startup building AI infrastructure for the home care industry, emerged from stealth with $6 million in funding from investors including Bonfire Ventures, Supernode Global and Comma Capital.

Aplagon, a Helsinki-based startup developing a therapy for treating thrombo-inflammatory diseases, closed a €4.8 million (about $5.6 million) funding round from investors including Fåhraeus Startup and Growth and the EIC Fund.

Kinomatic, an Arroyo Grande, Calif.-based AI- and VR-driven orthopedic surgery planning and aftercare provider, was seeded with a $4 million investment led by Waterline Ventures.

WSJ Pro: What most impressed you about Kimba’s pitch?

Dickinson: First, the product is unique. The market is flooded with devices that track and evaluate your sleep, but very few that actually improve it (and most of those sit at inaccessible price points). Second, [Ben Fuxbruner, co-founder and CEO], had a deeply personal connection to the product, having worked through his own PTSD using scent technology.

WSJ Pro: If there’s a skeptic in the firm, how were they won over?

Dickinson: Frankly, all of us thought the concept was too good to be true before we read the clinical study results. It’s rare that a pre-launch company runs such a high-integrity, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. In this case, we saw proven results.

WSJ Pro: Any fun stories from meetings?

Dickinson: Ben had a newborn at home when we were going through our diligence process, so he was very motivated to make the most of his limited hours of sleep!

WSJ Pro: If you were to compare this startup to a movie or TV show, what would it be?

Dickinson: “Ratatouille” (bear with me). There’s that moment when one bite of a dish instantly transports the critic back to his childhood, and as whimsical as it looks, it’s real neuroscience. Smell and taste have a direct line to the brain’s emotional and memory centers in a way no other sense does, which is exactly the mechanism Kimba is built on.

WSJ Pro: Do you have a favorite scent?

Dickinson: What's interesting is that Kimba isn't really designed around finding a favorite scent. Before we dug into the research, I assumed the scent itself would be the most important variable. What convinced us otherwise was learning that scent effectiveness is influenced both by the chemical properties of a scent and by the personal associations people have to it.

• Johnson & Johnson CEO Says Cure for Certain Cancers Is Realistic Goal
   
• Blood Tests Can Now Detect Alzheimer’s. Should You Get One?
   
• The Future of Health—From Head to Toe
   
• The Medicare Crisis for Insurers Is Over. The Easy Gains Are Too.
   
• RFK Jr. Orders American Exposed to Hantavirus to Stay Quarantined Against Medical Advice

• Kennedy seeks to expedite appeal of ruling that blocked his vaccine policies (New York Times) 
   
• Futile radiotherapy for patients with cancer near the end of life (JAMA Network Open)
   
• Man with ALS is ‘the first power user’ of a brain implant that lets him speak (MIT Technology Review)

This newsletter was compiled by Matthew Strozier, Zachary Cole and Brian Gormley. 

Share your tips, comments and questions: vcnews@wsj.com

The team: Matthew Strozier, Yuliya Chernova, and Brian Gormley.

Join us on LinkedIn.