There is a special kind of quiet that hits when an employer opens the renewal packet and realizes the “benefits” line item is not a benefit, it is a hostage note. Everybody in the room nods like this is weather. Nobody asks why the forecast keeps getting more expensive. Handl Health shows up and does the rude thing. It asks for the receipt.
Congratulations to Ahmed Marmoush and Ria Shah (Aishwaria Shah) on closing a $14.2M Series A (February 24, 2026), led by Arthur Ventures with Syndra Capital Partners and an undisclosed strategic investor, plus increased participation from Mucker Capital, Riverfront Ventures, DHVP, and Boutique Venture Partners. And respect to the earlier $2.5M seed (April 24, 2024) initiated by Mucker Capital and Everywhere VC, with Tau Ventures, Riverfront Ventures, DHVP, Boutique Venture Partners, Plug and Play Ventures, and Techstars in the mix. When that many sharp rooms agree, it is not a vibe, it is signal.
The origin story matters, because it is not a dorm room fantasy. Handl Health came out of an NIH SBIR grant that studied how price transparency legislation actually lands on employers and consumers. Translation: this started with research, then got angry, then got useful.
Handl Health is building an AI-driven platform for employer-sponsored health plans by unifying pricing, utilization, benefit, and quality data into one operational layer. Not a dashboard you admire. A Handl you can actually grab when the numbers start swinging. Handl Health reports $113M in identified savings across nearly $1B in healthcare spend, plus a 22% reduction in consumer costs on shoppable procedures for alternative plans built on the platform. That is not “awareness.” That is math doing cardio.
This is also a people story. The product spine has Ahmed Marmoush calling the shots with a clear thesis as CEO, Ria Shah shaping the network comparison and analytics as CPO, and founding technical leader Karthik Palaniappan proving early that the data problem is never just data. It is incentives in a trench coat. On the build side, Scott leads technology strategy and engineering execution for AI-driven cost containment, while Evan brings 20+ years of healthcare strategy and product leadership, including devices and AI, and the kind of engineering discipline that keeps optimism from becoming fiction. On the go-to-market front, Shapari Samimi brings the commercial and marketing craft that makes complexity legible without watering it down.
Business takeaway for founders selling into benefits and health plans: Handl Health did not win by yelling “AI.” Handl Health won by choosing a buyer with pain, proving savings with numbers executives can defend, and translating regulation into an operational advantage instead of a compliance headache.
If employers are paying for “access” to care, and employees are paying again at the point of care, what would happen if the industry had to Handl the truth in plain sight?
