Indian American's AI Health Startup Hits $2.5B Value

Patil, who left Harvard's design engineering master's program to launch the company, said her own diagnoses of PCOS and prediabetes drove her to build a system that catches warning signs early. "The healthcare system is set up so that you only go once you have a problem," she told Entrepreneur. "Had I seen these signs way earlier, these markers being elevated, I would've done something about it."

Function, valued at $2.5 billion, provides members with at-home blood collection, full-body MRI cancer screenings, and advanced imaging, alongside AI-powered explanations of results and recommended next steps. The company says comparable testing purchased independently would cost roughly $15,000.

Patil said the idea came to her while studying at Harvard, where she initially assumed a similar product already existed. After meeting CEO Jonathan Swerdlin, she said, "It was a no-brainer; there wasn't a lot of hesitation." She dropped out early to focus on the venture, joining co-founders including chief medical officer Dr. Mark Hyman and chief design officer Seth Weisfeld.

The company's early focus on lab testing was deliberate, Patil said, calling it "act one." She described the hardest part as "convincing investors of the bigger vision when it wasn't here yet." Function has since acquired imaging, supplement intelligence, and home blood draw companies to scale faster than building in-house.

Patil said the goal is to reach 8 billion people, with AI playing a central role. "I'm reimagining everything we've known about how we interact with our health," she said. "I am so excited about a world... where people can detect a problem before it becomes an actual problem, take action and have a strong relationship with their health."