Why We Invested in Azra AI

By Elizabeth Roberts and Cody Nystrom

In the United States, too many cancer patients fall through the cracks after diagnostic testing, at the very moment when speed and coordination matter most.

Health systems often rely on manual workflows, fragmented operations, and Excel spreadsheets to manage patient care, an inefficient process that causes delays to treatment and accreditation risks, prompting patients to leave for other health systems. Large care systems in particular are now looking for end-to-end platforms that can unify navigation, registry compliance, tumor boards, and analytics.

Azra AI is a Nashville-based, AI-powered workflow automation platform that streamlines cancer care coordination, patient navigation, and registry management for healthcare systems. The company helps health systems identify cancer patients earlier and deliver on follow-up care from diagnosis through remission, resulting in reduced time to treatment for patients and improved workflow efficiency and patient retention for health systems.

SJF is excited to share that we participated in an oversubscribed funding round for Azra AI, which not only identifies patients who may otherwise slip through the cracks, but also helps health systems show up for patients at the moment they are most vulnerable.

Systematically improving cancer patient care coordination and outcomes

The oncology care market is a large and growing space driven by rising cancer incidence, increasing data complexity, workforce shortages, and heightened competition among health systems to retain patients throughout the full episode of care. While advances in diagnostics and AI have improved detection, oncology workflows remain highly manual and fragmented.

Azra AI’s end-to-end solution ensures that patients are immediately given support the moment cancer is suspected, so they are not left wondering what comes next or who is advocating for them. The platform reduces patient leakage to other health systems while improving their quality of care. For clinicians and care teams, Azra AI restores time and purpose to work that is too often buried under manual tasks. It allows nurses, navigators, and physicians to spend less time chasing data and more time caring for people, while giving health systems the tools to deliver coordinated and equitable cancer care at scale.

Oncology AI is a core area of focus for SJF. We have spent significant time engaging with clinicians, founders, and health systems to understand where AI can deliver meaningful, workflow-embedded impact in cancer care. We followed Azra AI through our deep thematic work in oncology and leveraged our sector expertise and network to engage in the round and commit additional capital at a pivotal stage of the company’s growth.

In this funding round, we’re partnering with existing investors Sopris Capital and new investors Connexa Capital and LIP Ventures, all of whom share a strong commitment to the responsible use of AI in healthcare and a capital-efficient approach to building durable companies. Azra AI aligns with SJF’s broader thesis around AI for healthcare infrastructure as well as SJF’s health and wellness impact objectives, including improving access to care and providing better long-term outcomes for less cost.

Measurable impact for patients and health systems

Azra AI aligns closely with all four of SJF’s health and wellness objectives, and its leadership, led by CEO John Marshall, is deeply impact-driven. The platform is purpose-built to solve one of the most persistent failures in oncology care—patient follow-up and care coordination—which disproportionately harms the most vulnerable patients.

Azra is also specifically addressing health equity disparities, conducting social determinants of health (SDoH) screening to inform patient care plans and allowing patients in rural areas to receive care at local health systems when possible. The company’s inclusion of these factors in clinical workflows and patient care helps ensure that location and SDoH factors are not barriers to care delivery.

Azra AI’s impacts for its customers are clear:

• Reduction in time to treatment: Azra reports that its platform can reduce the time from cancer diagnosis to treatment by up to 7 days by automatically analyzing radiology and pathology reports, identifying patients with suspected malignancies earlier, and routing those cases to oncology care teams for follow-up.
• Broad health system adoption: Azra’s platform is used by more than 200 hospitals and cancer centers across the United States, reflecting adoption among health systems seeking to improve cancer patient identification and care coordination.
• Large volume of data processed: Azra has processed more than 100 million radiology and pathology reports, which form the data foundation used to train and refine the company’s AI models for detecting potential cancer diagnoses and surfacing cases that require follow-up care.

With our support, Azra AI is positioned to scale its platform nationally and continue helping health systems deliver timely, coordinated cancer care.