Kivo Health
AI-enabled telehealth for pulmonary rehabilitation and chronic lung disease care, initially COPD.
Website: https://kivohealth.com
Cover Block
Publicly reported
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | Kivo Health |
| Tagline | AI-enabled telehealth for pulmonary rehabilitation and chronic lung disease care, initially COPD [Y Combinator, February 2023] |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, United States [Crunchbase] |
| Founded | 2021 [Crunchbase] |
| Stage | Series A [Axios, October 2026] |
| Business Model | B2B2C |
| Industry | Healthtech |
| Technology | AI / Machine Learning |
| Geography | North America |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Co-Founders (2), Victor Sadauskas and Vaughn Koch [Y Combinator, February 2023] |
| Funding Label | Series A |
| Total Disclosed | ~$10,000,000 [Axios, October 2026] |
Links
Publicly reported
- Website: https://kivohealth.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kivo-health
Summary and Signal
PUBLIC Kivo Health is building AI-enabled telehealth pulmonary rehabilitation for chronic lung disease, starting with COPD, and it merits investor attention now because the company has reached a disclosed Series A stage in a category where access constraints are well documented and payer economics are central to adoption [Y Combinator, February 2023] [Axios, October 2026] [hiretop.com, retrieved 2026]. The founding story is straightforward: Kivo has said it was created after its team saw how few eligible patients could reach traditional pulmonary rehabilitation, a problem the company and one third-party source quantify at roughly 3% access, though that figure still rests on limited public corroboration [Y Combinator] [hiretop.com, retrieved 2026].
The product appears to be a live, therapist-led virtual pulmonary rehab program, described publicly as an 8-week or 9-week insurance-billed offering, with Kivo positioning the AI layer around care delivery and payer cost reduction rather than presenting a pure software-only workflow [LinkedIn] [Kivo Health, retrieved 2026] [Y Combinator, February 2023]. Public materials suggest the commercial motion is B2B2C through health plans and healthcare organizations, and Kivo has named Stanford, UCLA, and Optum Health among organizations it works with, with a separate public announcement tying the company to Optum Arcadia in California [Roundfunded] [Y Combinator, February 2023] [StreetInsider, retrieved 2026].
The founding team is relevant to the problem set. Co-founder and CEO Victor Sadauskas is presented as a Stanford-trained physician with prior emergency medicine work at Kaiser Permanente and exposure to digital-health investing, while co-founder and CTO Vaughn Koch is described by the company as a repeat founder with prior roles at Datamode, Movity, and Expedia [TechCrunch, retrieved 2026] [Crunchbase, retrieved 2026] [Kivo Health].
On capitalization, the cleanest public read is that Kivo has disclosed a $10 million Series A, but the broader funding chronology is not fully settled across sources, with CB Insights listing a separate $5.13 million Series A entry and PitchBook reporting $12.8 million total funding [Axios, October 2026] [CB Insights, retrieved 2026] [pitchbook.com, retrieved 2026]. Over the next 12 to 18 months, the key watch items are whether Kivo can convert company-stated ROI and per-patient savings claims into independently referenced outcomes, deepen named plan and provider relationships, and show that its care model scales without losing the clinical intensity that makes pulmonary rehab effective in the first place [Y Combinator] [Kivo Health, retrieved 2026] [MassMutual Ventures, September 2026].
Thinly sourced -- This section mixes two-source public corroboration for company identity, founders, and Series A status with weaker, company-led evidence for product outcomes, customer breadth, and funding chronology.
Taxonomy Snapshot
| Axis | Value |
|---|---|
| Stage | Series A |
| Business Model | B2B2C |
| Industry / Vertical | Healthtech |
| Technology Type | AI / Machine Learning |
| Geography | North America |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Co-Founders (2) |
| Funding | Series A, total disclosed approximately $10,000,000 |
Company Overview
PUBLIC
Kivo Health entered the public record in early 2023 with a fairly specific thesis: pulmonary rehabilitation is clinically useful, but access is scarce, and the company intends to deliver that care remotely through a telehealth model focused first on chronic lung disease and COPD [Kivo Health, February 2023] [Crunchbase]. Crunchbase lists the company as founded in 2021 and headquartered in San Francisco, while the company's own launch materials tied its public debut to Y Combinator's Winter 2023 batch in February 2023 [Crunchbase] [Kivo Health, February 2023].
The founding team is disclosed as Victor Sadauskas and Vaughn Koch, with Sadauskas serving as CEO according to the company profile on Crunchbase [Crunchbase]. In chronological terms, the public milestones that can be supported from company and Crunchbase records are narrow but clear: founding in 2021, public launch in February 2023, and subsequent emergence as a venture-backed business with a Series A designation on Crunchbase [Crunchbase] [Kivo Health, February 2023]. The legal entity name is not established in the cited materials used for this section, so it is omitted here rather than inferred.
One source, partially checked -- Supported by Crunchbase and the company launch announcement, but several material details, including legal entity information and fuller milestone chronology, are not corroborated in the cited records.
The Product and the Stack
Public record plus analysis
Kivo Health is selling a fairly specific care delivery model, not a broad telehealth abstraction. Public materials describe the product as AI-enabled telehealth pulmonary rehabilitation and chronic lung disease care, initially focused on COPD, with delivery aimed at patients who cannot easily access traditional pulmonary rehabilitation in person [Y Combinator, February 2023]. Across its YC profile, investor materials, and company pages, the through-line is consistent: virtual lung therapy delivered remotely, with health plans and healthcare organizations positioned as the commercial buyer rather than individual consumers [Y Combinator, February 2023] [MassMutual Ventures, September 2026] [Roundfunded].
The evidence on program design is directionally clear but not perfectly aligned on duration. A LinkedIn company description says Kivo's core service is an eight-week pulmonary rehab program delivered by therapists over live video [LinkedIn], while a Kivo job posting describes a nine-week, insurance-billed program that connects patients to therapists in real time [Kivo Health, retrieved 2026]. That discrepancy is small in operating terms, but it matters analytically because it suggests the public product narrative is still evolving across channels rather than locked to a single standardized description. The company has also publicly tied its offering to payer economics, claiming average savings of more than $8,000 per patient and a 3.1x ROI for health plans, including a scenario of nearly $10 million in cost savings for a Medicare Advantage plan with 100,000 lives; those figures remain company-sourced and should be treated as promotional until independently validated [Y Combinator] [Kivo Health, retrieved 2026].
A named integration point does appear in the record. Kivo announced a partnership with Optum Arcadia, part of Optum California's physician network, to combine Arcadia's value-based care model with Kivo's AI-powered virtual lung rehab for patients in California [Kivo Health, retrieved 2026] [StreetInsider, retrieved 2026]. Beyond that, the public footprint offers only a narrow read on the underlying stack: current hiring points to a small in-office engineering team in Seattle, but there is no verified public demo or technical documentation that would justify stronger claims about the architecture, model layer, data moat, or device integration. Any stack-level view beyond telehealth delivery and AI-enabled workflow would be speculative (inferred from job postings) [Ashbyhq] [Y Combinator].
No independent source found -- Core product positioning is corroborated across Y Combinator and MassMutual Ventures, but key operating details and outcome claims in this section remain materially company-sourced, with only partial third-party confirmation from LinkedIn and StreetInsider.
The Market They Are Entering
PUBLIC
Pulmonary rehabilitation sits at the intersection of two durable pressures, chronic respiratory disease and the push to move reimbursable care out of the clinic, which makes the market relevant even before Kivo-specific execution is tested [Y Combinator, February 2023] [MassMutual Ventures, September 2026].
The hard limit in this section is data availability. The source set supports Kivo's category definition, telehealth pulmonary rehabilitation and chronic lung disease care, but it does not include a named third-party TAM, SAM, or SOM study for this company or an independently sourced pulmonary-rehab market model [Y Combinator, February 2023] [MassMutual Ventures, September 2026]. The most concrete public demand signal is access scarcity: Kivo's materials say the company was started after finding that only 3% of patients could access lung therapy, and a separate employer-brand article repeats that only 3% of eligible patients currently have access to pulmonary rehabilitation [Y Combinator] [Hiretop, retrieved 2026]. That does not size the market in dollars, but it does frame the commercial opening as an access problem inside an existing standard-of-care pathway.
A small table is more defensible than a market model here because the public evidence is mostly claim-level rather than survey-level. The figures below should be read as category indicators, not as a full market map.
| Cited market signal | Figure | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Eligible patients with access to pulmonary rehabilitation | 3% | Repeated in Kivo-linked public materials as the access constraint the company is targeting [Y Combinator] [Hiretop, retrieved 2026] |
| Projected ROI for health plans using Kivo | 3.1x | Company-linked and individual-profile claim tied to Medicare Advantage economics, not independent market research [kivohealth.com/health-plans, retrieved 2026] [LinkedIn, retrieved 2026] |
| Claimed payer savings per patient | $8k+ | Company claim used in go-to-market materials, not independently verified outcomes research [Y Combinator] [kivohealth.com/careers/health-systems-account-manager, retrieved 2026] |
The pattern in the table is straightforward. Publicly visible evidence emphasizes under-penetration and payer economics, which suggests the category is being sold less as a consumer wellness market and more as a medical-cost-offset market for plans and provider organizations [Y Combinator, February 2023] [Roundfunded].
Demand drivers follow from that framing. Chronic lung disease care is a recurring need rather than a one-time elective purchase, and Kivo's public positioning toward health plans, healthcare organizations, and Medicare Advantage populations implies a buyer base that cares about hospitalization reduction, network reach, and reimbursable remote delivery more than app engagement alone [Roundfunded] [kivohealth.com/health-plans, retrieved 2026] [MassMutual Ventures, September 2026]. The Optum Arcadia partnership announcement, while still company-sourced or distributed through press-release channels, points in the same direction: the program is being packaged into value-based care workflows rather than marketed as a direct-to-consumer subscription [Kivo Health, retrieved 2026] [StreetInsider, retrieved 2026].
The most relevant adjacent markets are broader virtual chronic-care management, remote patient monitoring, and digital therapeutics for cardiopulmonary conditions. The source set does not support quantified comparisons across those segments, so the cleaner analytical read is substitutability: Kivo is not only competing with in-person pulmonary rehab capacity, but also with general telehealth programs, care-management vendors, and health-system home-based service lines that can absorb COPD patients without offering a pulmonary-rehab-specific product [Y Combinator, February 2023] [MassMutual Ventures, September 2026]. That matters because category-specific clinical workflow can be a differentiator, but it also narrows the initial buyer conversation to organizations that see respiratory spend as a discrete budget problem.
Regulatory and macro forces are favorable in direction, even if the current evidence base here is indirect. Kivo's insurance-billed program description and repeated ROI framing indicate a market shaped by reimbursement policy, Medicare Advantage cost pressure, and provider demand for lower-cost care pathways that can extend specialist capacity remotely [kivohealth.com/careers/health-systems-account-manager, retrieved 2026] [kivohealth.com/health-plans, retrieved 2026]. The practical constraint is that this section cannot show a fully sourced policy-to-revenue chain from public materials alone. For investors, the market case is therefore credible at the problem level, access bottlenecks in pulmonary rehab and budget pressure in senior chronic care, but still light on independent third-party market sizing and outcomes literature within the current source set.
Thinly sourced -- Category definition is corroborated by Y Combinator and MassMutual Ventures, but market sizing is not independently established in the provided sources, and the numeric demand signals rely partly on company-linked claims and a single secondary repetition.
The Competitive Field
Public record plus analysis
Kivo Health is positioned less against a clearly disclosed peer set than against the current care pathway itself, which still appears to leave most eligible pulmonary rehabilitation patients outside the system [Y Combinator, February 2023] [hiretop.com, retrieved 2026].
Public evidence supports three competitive layers. The first is the incumbent care model: in-person pulmonary rehabilitation programs delivered through hospitals and health systems, which remain the clinical reference point for COPD and related chronic lung disease management, and which Kivo is explicitly trying to virtualize through live-video therapy and insurer-billed programs [LinkedIn] [kivohealth.com/careers/health-systems-account-manager, retrieved 2026]. The second layer is adjacent digital-health infrastructure, where Kivo appears to sell through health plans and provider organizations rather than directly to consumers, making internal care-management teams, telehealth vendors, and value-based care platforms practical substitutes in the buying process even when they are not product-identical [Roundfunded] [Y Combinator, February 2023]. The third layer is strategic distribution partners, illustrated by the Optum Arcadia relationship, where Kivo is not replacing the payer or medical group but supplying a condition-specific program inside a broader managed-care workflow [streetinsider.com/Business Wire, retrieved 2026] [kivohealth.com/blog/optum-arcadia-and-kivo-health-launch-ai-powered-virtual-lung-rehab-and-care-for-patients-in-california, retrieved 2026].
That leaves Kivo with a fairly clear edge today, but one that should be treated as perishable rather than locked in. The edge is specialization: the company is narrowly framed around virtual pulmonary rehabilitation and chronic lung disease care, initially COPD, rather than broad virtual primary care or general remote monitoring [Y Combinator, February 2023] [MassMutual Ventures, September 2026]. Founder-market fit also matters here. Victor Sadauskas is identified as a Stanford-trained physician and former emergency medicine physician at Kaiser Permanente, while Vaughn Koch is presented as a repeat founder with prior operating roles in technology, which together gives Kivo a credible blend of clinical and product orientation for a reimbursement-sensitive care model [TechCrunch, retrieved 2026] [Crunchbase] [Kivo Health, February 2023]. The durability question is whether that specialization compounds into proprietary outcomes data, payer relationships, and workflow integration faster than larger care-delivery platforms can add a lung-care module. Public materials point to early institutional relationships with Stanford, UCLA, and Optum Health, but they do not yet establish exclusivity, scale, or long-term moat depth [Y Combinator, February 2023].
The company's exposure is equally specific. Kivo does not appear to own the patient relationship at the top of funnel, and the available sourcing suggests the commercial buyer is the health plan or healthcare organization, not the end user [Roundfunded] [Y Combinator, February 2023]. That means an organization such as Optum, named publicly as a partner through Optum Arcadia, also represents the kind of scaled incumbent that can absorb, channel-shift, or eventually internalize parts of the program if outcomes and reimbursement economics become attractive enough [streetinsider.com/Business Wire, retrieved 2026]. The other exposure is evidentiary. Kivo's public ROI and savings claims, including $8k-plus average payer savings per patient and a projected 3.1x ROI, are company-linked claims rather than independently published outcomes studies in the material provided here [Y Combinator] [kivohealth.com/health-plans, retrieved 2026] [kivohealth.com/support, retrieved 2026]. In a category where procurement is often clinical and actuarial at once, the absence of independently reported deployment detail leaves room for larger payer-aligned platforms to compete on trust, breadth, or contracting muscle.
The most plausible 18-month scenario is that the category consolidates around distribution rather than raw feature depth. If narrow, condition-specific virtual programs continue to show reimbursement fit, Optum looks like the clearest public "winner if X," specifically if integrated payer-provider channels remain the dominant route to scaling pulmonary rehabilitation access, because it already sits inside the claims, network, and care-management stack that specialized vendors need [streetinsider.com/Business Wire, retrieved 2026]. The likelier "loser if Y" is the in-person-only pulmonary rehabilitation pathway, specifically if health plans keep backing remote delivery for members who otherwise would not attend site-based therapy, because the access gap itself is the problem Kivo and similar models are organized to solve [Y Combinator, February 2023] [hiretop.com, retrieved 2026]. For Kivo, the implication is straightforward: it does not need to outflank every large healthcare incumbent at once, but it does need to become difficult to displace inside a handful of payer and provider channels before broader telehealth and value-based care platforms treat virtual lung rehab as a standard feature.
Opportunity
PUBLIC
If Kivo Health executes, the prize is not a better telehealth clinic, but a category position inside payer and provider workflows for chronic lung disease where reimbursement, avoidable utilization, and specialist scarcity all point in the same direction [Y Combinator, February 2023] [MassMutual Ventures, September 2026].
The headline opportunity is to become a standard virtual pulmonary rehabilitation layer for health plans and large health systems managing COPD and related chronic lung disease populations. That outcome is reachable, rather than purely aspirational, because the company is already positioned around an area with documented access friction, with only 3% of eligible patients currently having access to pulmonary rehabilitation according to one cited source [hiretop.com, retrieved 2026]. Kivo also appears to sell into institutional buyers rather than consumers, which matters because the largest economic benefit in this category sits with the organizations that bear hospitalization risk and manage Medicare Advantage populations [Roundfunded] [kivohealth.com/health-plans, retrieved 2026]. Public materials further suggest the company has at least some early enterprise credibility, with Y Combinator listing Stanford, UCLA, and Optum Health among organizations it works with, and a separate public announcement tying Kivo to Optum Arcadia in California [Y Combinator, February 2023] [streetinsider.com, retrieved 2026].
The growth paths are still early, but the upside cases are legible from the current evidence base.
| Scenario | What happens | Catalyst | Why it's plausible |
|---|---|---|---|
| Medicare Advantage cost-out engine | Kivo becomes a preferred pulmonary rehabilitation and chronic lung management partner for Medicare Advantage plans, selling on avoided admissions and member outcomes | A payer or delegated-risk partner validates the claimed 3.1x ROI in broader deployment [kivohealth.com/health-plans, retrieved 2026] | The company already frames its value proposition around payer savings and ROI, and public materials indicate a partnership with Optum Arcadia, part of Optum California's medical group and physician network [Y Combinator, February 2023] [streetinsider.com, retrieved 2026] |
| Health-system virtual lung line | Kivo becomes the outsourced virtual pulmonary rehab layer for major provider systems that lack enough in-person rehab capacity | Expansion from named health-system relationships into recurring systemwide programs [Y Combinator, February 2023] | Kivo's public positioning is operationally aligned with this use case: live-video therapy, insurance-billed programming, and chronic lung disease care delivered remotely [LinkedIn] [kivohealth.com/careers/health-systems-account-manager, retrieved 2026] |
| Chronic-disease platform extension | Kivo uses the lung-care wedge to broaden into adjacent senior chronic-care programs while keeping the same payer and provider channels | Product expansion beyond COPD after proving engagement and economics in pulmonary rehab [Y Combinator, February 2023] | The company's own description is broader than a single indication, calling itself "AI-powered virtual care for seniors with chronic disease, starting with lung care," which implies the initial category may be a wedge rather than the endpoint [Y Combinator, February 2023] |
The compounding dynamic, if it emerges, is straightforward. A payer or health-system deployment creates patient volume, that volume improves care-model workflows and AI-assisted operations, stronger outcomes support renewed contracts, and each contract adds another dataset around engagement, utilization, and care-path design in a hard-to-access population [Y Combinator, February 2023] [MassMutual Ventures, September 2026]. The early signs are still company-led rather than independently audited, but they are directionally relevant: Kivo consistently markets quantified payer savings, ROI, and insurance-billed program delivery, which suggests management understands the category will compound on economic proof rather than consumer brand pull alone [kivohealth.com/health-plans, retrieved 2026] [kivohealth.com/support, retrieved 2026] [kivohealth.com/careers/health-systems-account-manager, retrieved 2026].
The size of the win is harder to bound from public evidence because no third-party market-sizing source was provided in the research set, and there is no disclosed revenue base to anchor a multiple. Even so, a credible upside framing is available from capital formation and buyer type. If Kivo becomes an embedded pulmonary-rehab vendor across major Medicare Advantage and provider channels, the company could plausibly grow into a strategic care-platform asset for large payers, care-delivery groups, or digital-health consolidators; that could support enterprise value in the high hundreds of millions of dollars or above (scenario, not a forecast), especially if the claimed ROI holds up in scaled deployments and translates into sticky multiyear contracts [Axios, October 2026] [MassMutual Ventures, September 2026] [kivohealth.com/health-plans, retrieved 2026]. Public funding signals at least some investor appetite for that thesis, with Axios reporting a $10 million Series A in October 2026 and PitchBook reportedly listing $12.8 million total funding, though the financing chronology is inconsistent and should be treated cautiously [Axios, October 2026] [pitchbook.com, retrieved 2026] [Y Combinator, February 2023].
One source, partially checked -- This section relies on a mix of public company, investor, accelerator, and directory sources, with some partner references corroborated by a second public source but most ROI and savings claims remaining company-led.
Sources
Publicly reported
[Y Combinator, February 2023] Kivo Health: AI-powered care for seniors with chronic disease | https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/kivo-health
[Axios, October 2026] Exclusive: Kivo Health nabs $10M for lung disease | https://www.axios.com/pro/health-tech-deals/2026/10/23/kivo-health-10m-lung-disease-copd
[hiretop.com, retrieved 2026] Kivo Health's telehealth lung rehab | https://hiretop.com/blog2/kivo-healths-telehealth-lung-rehab/
[Kivo Health, retrieved 2026] Health Systems Account Manager | https://kivohealth.com/careers/health-systems-account-manager
[StreetInsider, retrieved 2026] Optum Arcadia and Kivo Health Launch AI-Powered, Virtual Lung Rehab and Care for Patients in California | https://www.streetinsider.com/Business+Wire/Optum+Arcadia+and+Kivo+Health+Launch+AI-Powered,+Virtual+Lung+Rehab+and+Care+for+Patients+in+California/26303970.html
[TechCrunch, retrieved 2026] Victor Sadauskas, Author at TechCrunch | https://techcrunch.com/author/victor-sadauskas/
[CB Insights, retrieved 2026] Kivo Health | https://www.cbinsights.com/company/kivo-health
[Crunchbase, retrieved 2026] Kivo Health - Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/kivo-health
[pitchbook.com, retrieved 2026] Kivo Health Company Profile | https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/493999-39
[Kivo Health, February 2023] Kivo Health Launches, Backed by YCombinator | https://kivohealth.com/newsroom
[LinkedIn, retrieved 2026] Kivo Health | LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/kivo-health
[MassMutual Ventures, September 2026] Kivo Health | https://massmutualventures.com/companies/kivo-health/
[Roundfunded] Kivo Health | https://www.roundfunded.com/es/yc-startup/kivo-health
[Kivo Health, retrieved 2026] Optum Arcadia and Kivo Health Launch AI-powered Virtual Lung Rehab and Care for Patients in California | https://kivohealth.com/blog/optum-arcadia-and-kivo-health-launch-ai-powered-virtual-lung-rehab-and-care-for-patients-in-california
[Ashbyhq] Full-Stack Engineer | https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/kivo-health/c48b7afe-2f4b-4821-9561-87aa4663e483
[LinkedIn, retrieved 2026] Luke Hall - Chief of Staff at Haystack Health | https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-hall-ba27a81a8/
[Kivo Health, retrieved 2026] Health Plans | https://kivohealth.com/health-plans
[Kivo Health, retrieved 2026] Support | https://kivohealth.com/support
[LinkedIn, retrieved 2026] Prashanth Srivastava - Stanford Health Care | LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/prashanth-srivastava-60466711/
[Schutzworks.com, retrieved 2026] Andrew Schutzbank MD, MPH | Healthcare Advisor | https://schutzworks.com/
Articles about Kivo Health
- Kivo Health's AI Telehealth Is Reaching the 97% of COPD Patients Who Can't Access Pulmonary Rehab — The YC-backed startup, which partners with Optum and Stanford, projects a 3.1x ROI for health plans by reducing hospitalizations.