OpenAI Agrees to Buy AI Healthcare App For About $100 Million
The Takeaway
- OpenAI has agreed to buy AI healthcare app Torch for about $100 million in equity
- Torch’s technology unifies disparate medical data for personalized insights
- Acquisition should bolster OpenAI’s personalized ChatGPT health assistant plans
OpenAI has agreed to buy Torch, a one-year-old AI healthcare app, for about $100 million in equity, according to a person with direct knowledge of the acquisition.
Torch enables customers to view and analyze their health data from health systems such as Kaiser Permanente, medical scanning firms like Prenuvo, and apps that track physical activities such as Apple Health. The deal value includes $60 million now and the rest in equity to retain employees, according to a second person familiar with the acquisition.
The purchase of the startup could bolster OpenAI’s own plans to offer a personalized healthcare assistant in ChatGPT that analyzes medical records and advises customers on health issues. Torch says its product relies in part on AI models from OpenAI to provide personalized medical insights based on the data. It isn’t clear how many people use Torch, which operates as a chatbot and is open to a private group of users.
All four employees of Torch, including CEO Ilya Abyzov, plan to join OpenAI. They started Torch last year after their last startup—health clinic operator Forward—shut down in late 2024. The startup has raised a small amount of early funding from ex-Forward CEO Adrian Aoun, who also co-founded Torch, First Round Capital and others.
After Torch’s founders posted on X about the deal, OpenAI said on X: “Bringing this together with ChatGPT Health opens up a new way to understand and manage your health.”
The acquisition comes as AI-native startups rush to capitalize on public interest in using chatbots to answer health-related questions and resolve long-standing healthcare problems. such as the difficulty of collecting their own health history.
Last week, OpenAI said it was introducing a ChatGPT Health tab that people could use to ask questions informed by their own medical records and data from fitness apps, including Apple Health and MyFitnessPal. Over the weekend, Anthropic unveiled healthcare features for its chatbot Claude, including giving subscribers the ability to connect Claude to their medical records and fitness results.
For OpenAI, the Torch employees bring technical experience in uniting disparate medical information and accurately valuing them. For instance, the software can figure out how to navigate conflicting data, say from a fitness tracker and doctor’s office.