Where we share our weekly news debriefs and discussions with industry experts. These are lo-fi recordings aimed at giving our readers more opportunities to engage with our analysis and a view into some of the conversations that shape it.
The Grand Roundup: Devoted's $25B round, Oura's IPO, Cigna Investor Day, the C-SNP gold rush, and more
Kevin and Martin spend the first half of this week's episode on Devoted Health, which formally announced a $1.18B Series G at a $25B valuation. They get into the NAIC filings showing a 1.1% margin, confirmation that Devoted is profitable at the parent level, the 13 Series F investors who sat this round out, and why 133 new C-SNP plans in the MA landscape file might be the real story. Is the AI-driven admin cost edge durable, or a head start the incumbents eventually close?
From there it's Oura pulling its IPO, what that says about the gap between private and public markets, and Martin's bet on a post-midterms window. Then Cigna's Investor Day: Evernorth's specialty engine, Select's growth with small employers, and what that means for the challenger plans renting Cigna's network.
They round it out with Grindr buying Freddie, MultiCare launching an MA plan while others exit, Anthropic joining ARPA-H's ADVOCATE, HealthPartners and Essentia merging, and Thoreau's $500M commitment to Ortet.
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Lorikeet is a leading platform health tech companies use to build, test, and deploy AI concierges for patient and provider support. lorikeetcx.ai/healthtech
Links referenced
Business Insider: Devoted Health could be valued at $25 billion
https://www.businessinsider.com/healthcare-startup-devoted-health-could-be-valued-at-25-billion-2026-8
Axios (Dan Primack): Oura delays its IPO
https://www.axios.com/2026/09/29/oura-ipo-delayed-smart-ring
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29 Sept 2026
The Grand Roundup: AI agents turn insurance friction into a cost center, Rightway and transparent PBMs, longevity goes to work, Cigna investor day, and more
Kevin and Martin kick off with the latest Citrini report and its argument that AI agents will turn friction from a profit center into a cost center, with health insurance as exhibit A. Martin doesn't buy the idea that payers unwind, but thinks bots that fight every denial and prior auth mean higher premiums down the road. Kevin brings in the NYT story on SmarterDx and McLaren to ask whether all this coding automation just builds another middleman profit pool.
From there it's Rightway's $155M raise at a $1.75B valuation and 45 Fortune 500 clients. If transparent PBMs are winning, why isn't anyone at dinner parties saying their healthcare got better? Martin pulls up Drug Channels data, notes the CAA just made transparency table stakes, and lands on the iron law of insurance: bigger risk pools win, and every innovation gets metabolized.
In longevity, Superpower's B2B deal with Sequoia, August's $39 a month membership, Neko's 25,000-person New York waitlist, and PE money flowing into Aligned Modern Health. They close with Heidi Health, Corridor, Basalt, Oura's IPO, and Cigna's investor day.
Brought to you by
Lorikeet is a leading platform health tech companies use to build, test, and deploy AI concierges for patient and provider support. lorikeetcx.ai/healthtech (http://lorikeetcx.ai/healthtech)
Links referenced
Citrini Research, "Agentic Reality" (Sept. 22, 2026): https://www.citriniresearch.com/p/agentic-reality (https://www.citriniresearch.com/p/agentic-reality)
New York Times article on Blue Cross Blue Shield Association data about hospitals using AI coding: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/business/ai-hospitals-insurers-health-care-costs.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/business/ai-hospitals-insurers-health-care-costs.html)
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21 Sept 2026
The Grand Roundup: Oscar's Investor Day, Alignment Health's mysterious 35% drop, OpenEvidence's oncology pivot, Walmart's GLP-1 pharmacist pilot, and more
Kevin and Martin open with a wild AI story: a personal-assistant app is now negotiating discounts with telehealth vendors on users' behalf, opening up some genuinely strange territory around bots negotiating with other bots.
From there it's Oscar's Investor Day: Bertolini's pitch that the individual market is a $350 billion opportunity, the ICHRA/Choice and Lucie marketplace ambitions, and whether any of it holds up against a shakier ACA market and skeptical brokers. Then Alignment Health, down 35% this week during CMS's Stars blackout, and OpenEvidence's confusing week — a $250 million raise at a lower valuation than they reportedly turned down over the summer, plus a surprise pivot into drug development.
Quick hits close the show: Thatch's $108 million raise, Walmart's new Scan partnership and pharmacist health-coaching pilot, and RCM moves at Waystar and Datavant.
Brought to you by
Lorikeet is a leading platform health tech companies use to build, test, and deploy AI concierges for patient and provider support. lorikeetcx.ai/healthtech (http://lorikeetcx.ai/healthtech)
Links referenced
Forbes article on OpenEvidence's $250M raise and Memorial Sloan Kettering partnership: https://www.forbes.com/sites/innovationrx/2026/09/16/a-premier-cancer-hospital-makes-its-data-available-to-doctors-nationwide-through-openevidence/ (https://www.forbes.com/sites/innovationrx/2026/09/16/a-premier-cancer-hospital-makes-its-data-available-to-doctors-nationwide-through-openevidence/)
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