Risa Labs Raises $11.1 Million To Scale AI Operating System For Oncology Workflows

Risa Labs, a Palo Alto–based health technology startup focused on oncology operations, has raised an $11.1 million Series A round to expand deployment of its AI operating system across cancer clinics, health systems, and specialty pharmacies in the United States.

The financing was co-led by Cencora Ventures and Optum Ventures, with participation from Oncology Ventures, Z21 Ventures, and John Simon through Ventureforgood. The round follows a $3.5 million seed raise announced last year, which supported early product development and initial customer deployments.

RISA co-founders Kshitij Jaggi and Kumar Shivang.

RIsa

Founded in 2024 by Kshitij Jaggi and Kumar Shivang, Risa is building what it describes as an AI operating system for mission-critical healthcare workflows. Its first focus is oncology, an area where administrative complexity, payer rules, and staffing shortages frequently delay patient access to treatment.

“In oncology, delays are costly for everyone involved, but especially for patients,” Jaggi said in an interview this morning. “If you’ve been diagnosed with cancer, every day matters. What we’re trying to do is remove the administrative friction that slows care down.”

Risa’s system connects directly to electronic medical records, payer portals, and benefits systems, using a network of AI agents to manage patient access, benefits verification, and prior authorization. The software adapts as payer rules, forms, or interfaces change, reducing the need for manual rework by administrative staff.

“We’re not building a chatbot or a thin copilot,” Jaggi said. “We’re building an AI operating layer that can actually read, reason, and act across the systems that cancer centers already depend on.”

The company reports early operational results from live deployments. At one large oncology practice, Risa says administrative staff time has been reduced substantially, denials have dropped by as much as 40 percent, and first-pass authorization approval rates have approached 98 percent. Authorizations that once took days are now being filed within 24 hours, with some sites approaching turnaround times measured in hours rather than days.

“We’re saving two to four days on every treatment we touch,” Jaggi said. “If a patient would have started therapy on Friday before, now they can start on Tuesday or Wednesday. That difference is meaningful.”

Risa is currently live at eight oncology practices, with an additional 15 under contract. Across those sites, the system is already processing thousands of cancer cases each day, a figure Jaggi expects to increase sharply as new customers come online over the next year.

Investor interest from the venture arms of large healthcare organizations reflects the scale of the administrative burden Risa is targeting. Optum is part of UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest health insurer, while Cencora is a Fortune 10 pharmaceutical services company with deep ties to specialty pharmacy and drug distribution.

“As the treatments available for oncology patients increase in number and complexity, solutions to help streamline operational processes and enable efficient access to therapy become vital,” said Jason Dinger, senior vice president of strategic execution at Cencora, in a statement accompanying the funding announcement.

Risa’s earlier seed round, announced in 2025, was led by Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal and helped establish the company’s focus on reducing treatment delays through administrative automation rather than attempting to influence clinical decision-making.

“We draw a very clear line,” Jaggi said. “Our system supports administrative and medical-necessity workflows, but we keep human supervision at key checkpoints. Customers can choose how autonomous they want the system to be.”

This is not the first AI system I’ve written about that is targeting this massive pain point in healthcare, which has everything to do with insurance, approvals, and costs, which continue to skyrocket as demand from an aging population grows. In October, we wrote about how New York-based Coral AI attacks healthcare’s most frustrating administrative work: the faxes, forms, portal logins, phone calls, and prior-authorization exchanges that delay patient intake and billing.

With the new capital, Risa plans to expand its go-to-market team, deepen deployments within existing customers, and extend its platform into specialty pharmacy workflows. Jaggi said the company is intentionally staying focused on oncology for now.

“Oncology is one of the most complex operational environments in healthcare,” he said. “If we can solve it here, we’re building a playbook that can eventually apply elsewhere. But right now, depth matters more than breadth.”

For Jaggi, the company’s mission remains grounded in patient experience as much as operational metrics. “This work matters because it changes what patients actually feel in the system,” he said. “Less waiting, less uncertainty, and faster access to care.”