When Dr. Ahmed Kerwan started practicing medicine in the UK, he quickly realized a hard truth—admin tasks were eating into valuable time he could have spent with patients. On some days, only three hours were dedicated to actual patient care, with the rest spent navigating tedious insurance paperwork and medical documentation.
This administrative overload is a common pain point across healthcare. While many startups are already using AI to lighten the load—from ambient note-taking apps like Abridge to AI assistants like Ambience—Kerwan believes his new venture, Taxo, stands apart.
What Makes Taxo’s AI Different?
Founded by Kerwan and now headquartered in San Francisco, Taxo uses an AI-powered reasoning engine designed to handle time-consuming healthcare admin like prior authorizations, patient onboarding, and billing.
Unlike standard AI assistants, Taxo’s standout feature is its transparent reasoning engine, which explains the logic behind every recommendation. This transparency helps build trust with healthcare professionals who often hesitate to use black-box AI tools.
Taxo claims its tool has already raised prior authorization approval rates to 98%, well above the industry average of 80%. By giving users visibility into how decisions are made, the platform reduces AI “hallucinations” and increases adoption among physicians.
Built for Healthcare, Not Just Adapted
Instead of relying solely on generic AI tools, Taxo’s team customized existing models from OpenAI and Anthropic with a healthcare-specific training layer. According to Kerwan, the platform was trained using rare, hard-to-access datasets unique to the medical field—making it far more difficult for competitors to replicate overnight.
“We didn’t want to get wiped out each time OpenAI launched a new model,” Kerwan told TechCrunch. “So we invested in domain-specific intelligence that can’t be easily scraped.”
Early Traction and Funding Milestone
The YC-backed startup recently closed a $5 million seed round, attracting backing from General Catalyst, Character Capital, and Y Combinator. The funding will help accelerate product development and customer expansion as the platform scales.
Founded just last year, Taxo reached $1 million in ARR within six months of launch—a rare feat in the crowded AI healthcare space. It currently works with around 15 healthcare organizations, including clinics and public sector providers.
Trust Over Black Boxes in AI Healthcare
When OpenAI released ChatGPT, many doctors were hesitant to embrace it due to its opaque decision-making. In contrast, Kerwan designed Taxo to offer explainable AI, helping users understand where recommendations come from and why.
That level of clarity may prove crucial as the broader AI ecosystem shifts toward reasoning-based models. While companies like China’s DeepSeek are spearheading this approach, Taxo is one of the few startups applying it directly to healthcare administration.
“Our goal is simple: give doctors their time back,” said Kerwan. “And we believe the best way to do that is by making AI not just smart, but explainable.”
