2026 is shaping up to be the year health AI moves from experiment to infrastructure. Six of the most powerful technology companies in the world — Google, OpenAI, Samsung, athenahealth, Perplexity, and Apple — are racing to build health AI products, and they all need the same thing: a reliable, clean, longitudinal health record for every patient. That race is happening now, and it is winner-take-most. Rock Health’s Q1 2026 report noted a significant uptick in digital health funding for the data and interoperability layer. We were way out in front of these trends when we invested in b.well, and the market has validated that thesis at a speed we did not anticipate. Five major platform partnerships in five months — all running through the same b.welldata layer. Companies that become the infrastructure standard get buried into the foundation and stay, and b.well is winning that race.
The GLP-1 Backlash and the Cardiometabolic Opportunity
The headline drugs are transformative, but the market is beginning to reckon with their cost and side effects. Several large payers are starting to push back on blanket GLP-1 coverage, and employers are scrutinizing the ROI. This is precisely the environment FlyteHealth was built for. The company began in medical weight loss management, and is now repositioned around the Cardio-Kidney-Metabolic (CKM) framework — where it has proven that 70% of patients achieve weight loss and cardiometabolic goals without pharmacotherapy. This is not just a differentiator, it is the argument payers are now actively looking for. A Milliman-validated outcomes study gives FlyteHealth the independent data to make that case in every payer conversation. As health plans look for value beyond the prescription pad, we believe FlyteHealth sits at the right intersection at the right time.
The Maternal Care Policy Wave
The doula reimbursement movement echoes the structure of the mental health parity movement fifteen years ago: policy catching up to evidence, unlocking a new investable market. Before 2020, only two states — Oregon and Minnesota — reimbursed doula care through Medicaid. As of March 2026, 26 states and D.C. are actively reimbursing, with more working through implementation. The ROI for payers is clear, the evidence base is strong, and the market is now moving. Flourish Care — our portfolio company and the leading insurance-covered doula network — was built for exactly this moment, and its growth is the direct result of this policy wave breaking.
Across the portfolio, our companies are not just tracking these industry shifts — they are setting the pace. More below.
Portfolio Company Updates
b.well Connected Health · Health Data Infrastructure
b.well's story is no longer about individual deals — it's about becoming the infrastructure standard. Applications get disrupted; infrastructure stays.
Partnerships. Since October 2025, b.well has announced an unprecedented run of platform partnerships — each one an infrastructure decision, not a co-marketing deal. Google, OpenAI, athenahealth, Samsung, Perplexity, Noom, Humana, and Welldoc have all selected b.well as the data layer powering their health AI products, experiences, and interoperability commitments. All reached the same conclusion: clean, complete, trustworthy health data is the precondition for everything AI health promises to deliver, and b.well’s proprietary 13-step Data Refinery is the only platform that delivers it at scale.
MedTech Breakthrough Award — Third Consecutive Year. b.well was named “Best Patient Portal” in the 10th Annual MedTech Breakthrough Awards — the third year running. The recognition underscores b.well’s proprietary 13-step Data Refinery that transforms fragmented health records into a single, trustworthy longitudinal record — the foundation every AI health application depends on.
Claros continues to build on its 99.99% PFAS destruction breakthrough and its partnership with Daikin America. In March, CEO Michelle Bellanca sat down with the Twin Cities Business Show to discuss how Claros is leading the charge on one of the most complex environmental challenges facing lawmakers and industry today — taking the “forever” out of forever chemicals. The conversation also traces Michelle’s journey from senior executive at 3M to founding one of Minnesota’s most disruptive environmental technology companies.
Commercial Readiness. In December 2025, Claros completed a large-scale commercial optimization run of its ClarosTechUV™ system at Daikin America’s Decatur, Alabama facility, validating the technology’s readiness for full commercial deployment and positioning the two companies to deliver the world’s first full-scale commercial industrial PFAS destruction installation. Having processed more than half a million gallons of PFAS-containing industrial process water across varying concentrations and water chemistries, the technology is proven at scale. Engineering specifications for that first commercial installation are now underway.
Pipeline. Customer conversations have shifted in character — buyers are no longer evaluating whether the technology works. They are working through deployment. Claros’s pipeline has expanded meaningfully across North America, Europe, and Japan, with growing engagement from sectors beyond PFAS manufacturers, including high-tech electronics and pharmaceuticals, signaling that demand for permanent destruction solutions is broadening across regulated industries.
Global Stage. Claros’s ClarosTechUV™ has been included in the European Commission’s INCITE program (Innovation Centre for Industrial Transformation and Emissions), and the team is presenting at the EU’s INCITE Workshop in Seville, the PFAS Summit Europe 2026, IFAT Munich, the Battelle 2026 Chlorinated Conference, and the WEBS PFAS 7th International Conference in Paris. John Brockgreitens, Ph.D. was named a 2026 AAEES 40 Under 40 recipient by the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists — a further signal of the company’s standing as the field’s emerging technical leader.
Paterna made international headlines in late April with a landmark announcement: the company has successfully guided sperm-forming stem cells through the full maturation process in vitro — a milestone researchers have pursued for decades — and used its lab-grown sperm to create early-stage embryos as proof-of-concept validation. The story was covered by Newsweek, Wired, Gizmodo, the Salt Lake Tribune, and dozens of outlets worldwide.
American Urological Association Innovation Nexus Forum (May 14, Washington D.C.).Paterna was selected from a field of 43 innovators to present at the American Urological Association's 2026 Innovation Nexus Forum — the premier venue for emerging urological technology.
Flourish Care · Maternal Health & Doula Care
Founded in 2020 by biomedical engineer Melissa Bowley, Flourish Care is the leading insurance-covered doula network, operating as a B2B2C platform integrating directly into the workflows of health plans, OB/GYN clinics, hospitals, and federally qualified health centers. It is building an AI-driven risk prediction engine, and the clinical data is compelling: for Medicaid members, doula support is associated with a 47% lower risk of cesarean delivery, a 29% lower risk of preterm birth, and a 50% reduction in NICU admissions.
Flourish Care — a Capita3 portfolio company — announced an oversubscribed $5.7 million seed round on March 23, led by Zeal Capital Partners with participation from Create Health Ventures, Collide Capital, Rogue Women’s Fund, and others including Capita3. The financing comes at a meaningful policy inflection point, with Medicaid doula reimbursement now active in 26 states and D.C. — up from just two before 2020. Flourish Care is now available to more than 20 million covered lives through national and regional commercial health plans and Medicaid, including UnitedHealthcare.
The funding was covered by MedCity News, MobiHealthNews, HLTH.com, and others. The Star Tribune’s North Star Insider featured Flourish Care alongside Capita3 Partners Kathy Tune, Pam York and CEO Melissa Bowley — read the full story here.
MDisrupt · The Operating System for Health Innovation
MDisrupt is the AI-powered health expert marketplace powering healthcare's boldest innovations — and its reach extends across every dimension of what it takes to build, commercialize, and scale a health company. Through a network of more than 4,000 vetted experts, MDisrupt connects healthtech, life sciences, diagnostics, and medtech companies with the right talent at the right moment: practicing clinicians and Chief Medical Officers, FDA regulatory strategists and submission specialists, reimbursement and health economics experts, go-to-market and commercialization leaders, health system and payer executives, data scientists and computational biologists, clinical trial operators, and product and engineering leaders. These experts are available by the hour, as fractional operators, or embedded as full advisory boards — matched, contracted, and managed through MDisrupt's AI-powered platform.
Its Health Expert in the Loop™ platform— launched in January 2026 — extends this model specifically into healthcare AI development, ensuring models are trained, validated, and stress-tested by the domain experts who understand real-world patient care. As founder and CEO Ruby Gadelrab has put it: "In a world where AI is now table stakes for every company building in healthcare, Human Intelligence is the new competitive moat." MDisrupt exists to make that human intelligence accessible — across every stage of the innovation lifecycle, not just the clinical one.
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