What pharmacists can learn from Asepha's $4M seed fund raising

As a pharmacist entrepreneur, Eunice Wu looks to build the future of pharmacy through AI technology. Her startup, Asepha, recently raised $4 million USD in seed funding from major venture capital backers Glasswing Venture and Core Innovation Capital. This made me curious to learn more about How startups raise moneyStartups can undergo multiple rounds of fundraising as part of its lifecycle. In each round, investors provide startups with funding in exchange for a stake in the business. Pre-seed funding is the earliest stage, and may involve friends, families, and the founders themselves cutting checks to get the business up and running. Sometimes, during pre-seed funding, angel investors, who are individual private investors in early-stage startups, may also decide to contribute. Seed funding is the first official stage of fundraising. In addition to private investors, venture capital firms, companies that specialize in investing in startups, may also participate. These investments typically range from $500,000 to $5 million. Following a seed round, as startups grow, they might consider a Series A round. Series A funding is predominantly driven by venture capital firms and investments can range from $2 to $15 million. The next fundraising round, Series B, looks at supporting a startup in its efforts to expand and compete within its market. Investments could range from $15 to $50 million. Lastly, a Series C round intends to help a startup enter new markets or create new products. These investments could range from $30 million to $100 million. Subsequent funding rounds such as a Series D round or a Series E round will increase in investment size. Each time, the founders dilute their ownership and control over the business. For this reason, not all startups will raise external money.Asepha as a case studyAsepha is a technology company that uses AI to automate pharmacy workflows. Tasks such as answering the phone and filing prescriptions are essential, but take up precious time and resources away from pharmacy staff that could otherwise be used to provide direct patient care. By using AI to automate data entry and phone calls, pharmacists will have the bandwidth they need to provide patients the attention they deserve. Asepha is also leveraging AI for pharmacy use cases such as medication reconciliation and is constantly expanding capabilities. This breadth in scope ultimately positions Asepha as a personal assistant for pharmacists at work. Lessons for aspiring pharmacist entrepreneursEunice turns to her lived experience as a pharmacist as an important driver and enabler when building Asepha. Her perspective as a pharmacist gave her an edge in understanding the key pain points that pharmacists experience. In a quote given to Business Wire, Eunice states:“As a pharmacist, I experienced firsthand how much of our time is consumed by manual tasks that pull us away from patient needs. Asepha allows care teams to focus on what matters most, the people we serve. This funding allows us to scale that vision and bring meaningful relief to an overstretched workforce,” said Eunice Wu, CEO and Co-Founder of Asepha. “Our products are moving the needle in one of healthcare’s most operationally complex environments, improving access for tens of millions of patients along the way.”In her entrepreneurship journey, Eunice recognized that most software solutions used by pharmacists today are not actually built by pharmacists. Pharmacists in practice bring unique insight to tech companies which is why the Asepha team is entirely composed of either pharmacists or engineers.Learn more here: 'A personal assistant for every pharmacist': Asepha's AI for pharmaciesFor practicing pharmacists, Eunice’s journey demonstrates that problems in the everyday workflow can be an opportunity. For this reason, when building pharmacy solutions, pharmacists are uniquely advantaged and well-positioned to lead as innovators. Despite the general sentiment that the healthcare sector is slow to innovate, Eunice found that pharmacists and pharmacy enterprises were actually very open to novel technology when implemented thoughtfully. This approach requires the correct security measures in place, fallbacks, safeguards, training, and support. For pharmacists considering a technology venture, these considerations can be important to overcoming objections to innovation. Finding the right co-founder is also critical. Eunice met Can Uncu during her time with Techstars, a startup accelerator that helps match prospective founders. Can was an engineer at AMD working on the chips powering OpenAI and Azure today, but he left because he wanted to ensure safe AI was being built in highly regulated industries such as pharmacy. Their alignment of vision and their resulting partnership is essential to the work of Asepha today. ConclusionAsepha’s seed round success is inspiring both to aspiring pharmacist entrepreneurs but also to pharmacy practitioners curious about the future of practice. Eunice’s journey as a pharmacist-turned-entrepreneur offers key lessons that can help carve out a path for future innovators. Peter Zhang, PharmD, MBA is a hospital pharmacist at Southlake Regional Health Centre, a Senior Business Acceleration Partner at ODAIA, and a PhD student at the University of Toronto’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy studying health entrepreneurship.