Ferry Health has officially emerged from stealth with an AI-powered personal assistant designed to handle essential healthcare tasks for patients. The San Francisco based company is initially focused on finding medical providers and scheduling appointments, a process that often burdens patients and families. Ferry has secured $9 million in seed funding from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Index Ventures, Avid Ventures, Layout Ventures, SV Angel, Box Group, and Asymmetric Capital, among others.
A Personal Inspiration
The idea for Ferry grew from a deeply personal experience involving co-founder and CEO Mehul Mehta's father. After a hospitalization, Mehta observed how much responsibility fell on family members to find specialists, understand costs, and deal with insurance companies between doctor visits. He launched Ferry in early 2024 with his brother Keyur Mehta and longtime friend Andrew Buie after speaking with hundreds of patients about their most common frustrations.
Automating the Search for Care
Finding and booking care often means spending hours on the phone with outdated insurance directories and long hold times. Many calls end in dead ends because providers have retired or are no longer accepting new patients. Ferry's AI agents take over this process by identifying in-network providers, validating location details and subspecialty fit, confirming availability, and booking the appointment on the patient's behalf.
Patient Experience and Early Feedback
Patients can simply message Ferry and get scheduled with a provider of their choosing without picking up the phone. One user, Jeremy Zhang, uses Ferry to help manage his mother's medical care and described the experience as having a team of ten taking care of his family. Zhang noted that when booking an appointment requires almost no effort, it becomes much easier to address a health issue like his mother's orthopedic symptoms instead of delaying care.
Partnerships and Rapid Growth
Ferry works with health systems, insurers, and care navigation platforms to help patients find and schedule care across all specialties in all 50 states. The company supports everything from finding a doctor to following through on a referral. More than one million patients currently have access to Ferry through these partnerships, and the company expects that number to grow at least fivefold by the end of the year.
Expanding the Patient Journey
Early access customers are already using Ferry for more than finding appointments, including coordinating imaging and home health services. The company plans to expand its AI agent to manage additional parts of the patient journey in the coming months. This progression points to a broader ambition of handling healthcare logistics before, between, and after clinical visits.
Investor Confidence
Vineeta Agarwala, a general partner at a16z and an early investor, emphasized that people now have more health information than ever across phones, inboxes, and health apps. She stated that the missing element has been a reliable action layer that helps patients move from insights to real-world, insurance-covered care. Agarwala, a practicing physician, added that using Ferry to coordinate care felt like magic based on her own clinical experience.
Ferry Health is entering the healthcare navigation space with a clear focus on reducing administrative friction for patients and families. Its $9 million seed round and partnerships with major industry players give it a foundation to scale quickly across the United States. As AI agents mature, Ferry's approach illustrates how technology can turn healthcare information into tangible actions that improve access and ease long-standing patient burdens.