Peppermint, an AI-powered financial operations platform for clinical research teams, has raised US$4.7 million in Seed funding. The round was led by Moxxie with participation from Homebrew, Better Tomorrow Ventures, Layout Ventures, Digital Health Venture Partners, and Night Capital. The company plans to use the capital to expand its platform and help research organizations improve financial visibility and accelerate revenue collection.
Targeting an Outdated Financial Framework
Clinical research still depends on fragmented systems that were never designed to work together, creating financial blind spots across sponsors, contract research organizations, health systems, and research sites. The burden is especially heavy for sites, which often wait long periods for payments while managing limited operating capital. A 2024 survey by the Society for Clinical Research Sites found that one-third of sites carry more than 90 days of overdue receivables and 50% have three months or less of operating capital.
Bringing Fintech Discipline to Clinical Trials
Peppermint was founded by David Freeman and VJ Thurimella, who previously built payment and reconciliation infrastructure at X1 and Robinhood. They saw that clinical research teams lacked both cash and visibility into study revenue, costs, and operational metrics. The company is applying the same precision and scale used to process billions of dollars in consumer finance to the clinical trial revenue cycle.
How the Platform Works
The platform combines purpose-built AI with expert human billers to replace manual monthly billing with a continuous process. It ingests data from a site's clinical trial management software and cross-references that information against payment history and trial contracts. Peppermint then validates each invoice before it is sent, produces cleaner data for contract research organizations and sponsors, and pursues collections on behalf of partners.
Minimizing Disruption for Research Teams
Peppermint works within a site's existing clinical trial management software, pulling the data it needs without requiring migration or workflow change. This design reduces implementation barriers for hospital systems and research sites that cannot afford lengthy technology overhauls. It also allows finance leaders to maintain their current systems while gaining automated billing, collections, and reconciliation capabilities.
Early Results and Growing Demand
Peppermint reports that partners using its system collect revenue three times faster and reduce overdue invoices threefold while reclaiming 20% of staff time previously spent on billing. The number of studies under management has tripled over the past three months, reflecting demand from clinical research teams and hospital systems. These results show that automating financial operations can directly improve both cash flow and operational capacity.
Funding to Expand the Platform
With the new capital, Peppermint intends to move beyond collections into budget negotiation, expense management, and clinical trial analytics. The goal is to create a full financial ledger for research operations and give health systems margin visibility across an entire research portfolio. This expansion would provide finance leaders with a live view of the metrics that drive financial health and study performance.
Investor Confidence
Moxxie Managing Director and General Partner Alex Roetter noted that clinical trial billing still lacks standard financial infrastructure, forcing sites to reconstruct every dollar owed from disconnected systems. He said Peppermint is bringing the discipline of modern fintech to one of healthcare's least examined back offices. The round also drew participation from angel investors Benjamin Mann and Evan Moore.
Peppermint's Seed round signals growing recognition that clinical research needs purpose-built financial technology rather than manual workarounds. By combining automation, artificial intelligence, and expert oversight, the company aims to turn financial operations into a scalable engine for scientific discovery. As the platform expands, research teams may gain the cash clarity and capacity needed to advance new therapies faster.