As healthcare companies race to build AI copilots and agents, startup Zus Health is betting that the bigger opportunity is creating the connected patient data layer those applications need to work reliably.
Zus Health, Jonathan Bush's health tech company, picked up $33 million in series B funding to build out the data foundation for healthcare AI. Drive Capital led the series B round. Sanofi Ventures, HealthX Ventures and Alumni Ventures, as well as existing investors Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), F-Prime, Maverick Ventures and JAZZ Venture Partners also backed the round.
The financing brings Zus's total capital raised to more than $100 million, and the fresh funding will support the company's continued investment in its intelligent patient record platform, national healthcare data network and AI-powered clinical workflows.
Zus has built its platform in three layers, according to Bush. The company first focused on building a nationwide patient record, a data network that pulls information into that record, and increasingly, AI-enabled workflows that automate care tasks using a more complete view of the patient.
Electronic health record systems (EHRs) succeeded at digitizing healthcare but failed to make patient information portable across organizations, Bush, founder and CEO of Zus Health, told Fierce Healthcare. Clinicians and care teams still spend valuable time searching for records and reconciling incomplete information. For patients, that can mean repeating their medical history at every appointment or relying on memory to recall past treatments. Advances in artificial intelligence now offer an opportunity to make healthcare information not just accessible, but actionable, according to Zus Health executives.
Launched in 2021, Zus Health developed what Bush calls an "always-on, FHIR-native, API-first medical record." It offers a shared health data platform designed to accelerate healthcare data interoperability by providing easy-to-use patient data at the point of care via a standalone app, API (application programming interface), embedded components and direct EHR integration. At the center of its approach is an intelligent, continuously updated patient record that serves as a shared foundation for healthcare applications.
The company's Zus Aggregated Profile (ZAP) brings fragmented clinical information together into a unified, longitudinal patient record, supported by AI-powered clinical intelligence that makes the information easier to use across applications and workflows, according to the company. The platform also has nationwide connectivity across EHR networks, pharmacy data, care event notifications, labs and other clinical data sources that continuously updates the patient record without requiring customers to build their own connectivity infrastructure.
"We're finally on to the last and critical piece of what I think the future of medical records looks like, which is standing up workflows that automate all of the tasks of patient care in a very bespoke way," Bush told Fierce Healthcare. "[Zus Health] developed the first data-rich networked medical record platform in the industry's history. Whether Zeus wins or somebody else beats Zeus at it, all electronic medical records in the future will be national."
He added, "And now, with AI, we have an extraordinary opportunity to build workflows that actually make delivering care easier, faster and more effective."
The company is betting that the next competitive player in healthcare AI will be the data infrastructure underneath the applications.
Zus Health, a Fierce 15 of 2025 honoree, wants to use its nationwide data network and longitudinal patient record as the infrastructure on which AI-powered clinical applications can run. The company's platform enables EHRs and other applications to work from a more complete, cross-provider view of the patient. Zus Health built AI solutions and flexible integration capabilities to put connected information to work across clinical and operational use cases, while enabling healthcare organizations to build applications tailored to their needs.
Zus works with value-based care organizations, digital health companies, provider organizations, as well as diagnostics and precision medicine companies. The company claims that in August alone its nationwide network supported more than 110 million networked transactions, while its AI-native clinical platform generated 39 million evidence citations year-to-date across its solutions—demonstrating both the scale of its connectivity and how patient information is being put to work across healthcare.
Zus supports solutions spanning pre-visit preparation, transitions of care, risk adjustment, quality gap closure and population health management. Its clinical intelligence capabilities, including AI-powered generated patient summaries (GPS), turn fragmented patient records into information care teams can use more efficiently and confidently.
The company plans to use the series B funding to build out its AI-powered clinical intelligence and capabilities and broaden its healthcare data network connectivity. Zus plans to expand its solutions to automate population health and care management workflows, while enabling customers and developers to create AI-powered workflows across value-based care, specialty care and other high-value use cases.
The company is seeing rapid growth in specialty care, particularly oncology, where complex patient records are spread across multiple providers. Zeus’s continuously updated, aggregated patient data enables more comprehensive and efficient reviews of treatment eligibility, clinical trial criteria and genetic testing—tasks that traditionally required extensive manual work by nurses and analysts using fragmented legacy EHR systems, Bush noted.
"We believe healthcare is entering a new era in which AI can fundamentally change how care is delivered, but that transformation depends on having reliable, connected patient information," said Molly Bonakdarpour, general partner at Drive Capital, in a statement. "Zus has built the foundation to address that challenge at scale. Its combination of technology, market opportunity and leadership gives us conviction in the company's ability to help shape the next generation of healthcare."