elea – the immersive AI platform built to supercharge how healthcare professionals provide life-saving diagnoses and care – is today announcing it has raised €4M from Fly Ventures and Giant Ventures, alongside a milestone partnership with one of Germany’s largest, most critical MVZ (Medizinische Versorgungszentrum) hospital groups.
A healthcare risis
Founded to tackle the crises at the heart of global healthcare systems – growing staff shortages, 28% of physicians facing burnout, rising demand, increasing cancer rates, ageing populations, and admin overload – elea is an always on-hand, AI operating system that acts as a true AI agent, not than just another workflow tool.
By integrating deeply with the myriad systems healthcare professionals rely on each day, and optimised for mobile, elea uses voice recognition and conversational AI to respond to clinicians’ needs. It autonomously switches between systems, adapts to commands, and anticipates tasks – from drafting diagnoses to generating reports – with speed, context, and accuracy. All while directly addressing falling productivity.
Today, professionals spend 40% of their time on admin (versus 30% on care). elea shifts this balance; freeing clinicians to focus on what matters most – their patients.
Early momentum meets a world-class team
elea is the result of more than a decade’s expertise from a team that has lived healthcare’s challenges, and seen the transformative power of AI, first-hand. Dr. Christoph Schröder (CEO) led early AI and autonomous driving projects at Luminar, Mercedes and Bosch, while Dr Sebastian Casu (CMO) has spent more than a decade working in intensive care, anaesthesiology and across emergency departments. They are joined by Tobias Lygren and Stephan Frank as co-founders, alongside world-class engineer and healthcare teams in Hamburg, and Mountain View.
Despite only launching in 2024, elea’s AI-first operating system is already transforming pathology labs across Germany through a partnership with one of the country’s largest, most critical hospital groups. Previously, testing and diagnosis could take 2-3 weeks – elea has cut this to just hours. Reports can now be validated by clinicians and issued to patients at the click of a button, and life-saving interventions and treatments can be started without delay. And with the exceptionally large number of cases processed annually by the MVZ group, the impact is set to scale exponentially.
To maximise the impact of elea’s platform, it is taking a department-by-department approach to scaling, starting with pathology. The funding will be used to continue scaling this approach and expand into new departments.
Dr Sebastian Casu, co-founder and CMO of elea said: “No-one joins the healthcare sector to spend hours on admin; we’re driven by our desire to help people. Yet today’s systems, even the add-on solutions that promise to help, fall short. Clinicians’ hands remain tied and our patients miss out. With Elea, we’re proving technology can be an ally, not an obstacle, and can finally bring the power of this technology to achieve better patient outcomes and, ultimately, save lives.”
Gabriel Matuschka, Partner at Fly Ventures said: “AI has been promising to shift the dial in terms of healthcare efficiency and patient care for years but challenges remain, and in some areas are worsening. elea stands out by delivering an intuitive, deeply integrated AI-first system that not only spans workflows but can scale with speed and precision. It’s a genuine AI agent that frees clinicians up to spend more time with patients and has become the trusted partner of choice to leading hospital groups.”
Cameron McLain, Partner at Giant Ventures said: “elea’s founders bring an unparalleled combination of medical expertise and technical innovation. This has resulted in a transformative solution to solve the healthcare crisis and get professionals back to what they do best. elea is a game-changing platform and we’re excited to support their vision to improve healthcare globally.”
About elea:
elea is an AI-first operating system transforming the admin, demand and care crises at the heart of healthcare systems by embedding automation and voice-powered AI directly and deeply into specialist clinical workflows. Founded in 2024 by AI expert Dr. Christoph Schröder (CEO), medical specialist and clinician, Dr Sebastian Casu (CMO) with Tobias Lygren and Stephan Frank, elea has built a world-class team across Hamburg, and Mountain View. It is already trusted by some of the most critical clinics across Germany and is backed by leading investors, including Fly Ventures and Giant Ventures. Visit elea.health to learn more.
