A New Paradigm for Process Automation
For over a decade, legacy robotic process automation (RPA) vendors like UiPath and Automation Anywhere promised to eliminate repetitive work through “digital bots.” These traditional tools — with a combined revenue pool of over $4-5B — relied on mimicking keystrokes and mouse clicks to automate repetitive & high-volume tasks like processing transactions & data entry in industries like healthcare, finance & logistics. Given the nature of this technology, these tools worked best when interfaces were static and workflows predictable.
In today’s world, where unstructured data dominates (think images, PDFs, emails), interfaces are constantly changing, and workflows involve multiple stakeholders, it’s no surprise that traditional RPA is proving to be brittle. According to industry estimates, traditional RPA fails more than 30% of the time!
With this belief, we at Lightspeed began exploring what the next paradigm of process automation could look like — and that’s when we met Ajay, about a year ago in 2024. What was supposed to be a 30-minute chat turned into an hour and a half. His sharp insights on why traditional RPA is obsolete, why AI makes now the right time for a new kind of automation platform, and why healthcare is the best starting point immediately resonated with our thesis.
Beyond his clarity of thought, we were drawn to Ajay’s ambition and drive — despite not coming from healthcare, he had the conviction and foresight to reimagine it. His co-founder, Aniket, brought extremely relevant experience in AI and building systems at scale – together, they made partnering with them an easy decision.
Why Healthcare, Why Now
Healthcare’s administrative burden has never been higher — rising costs, staff shortages, and burnout are delaying care and driving up costs. While traditional RPA vendors have tried to serve this market (30%+ of the combined software revenue pool is from healthcare) by attempting to automate the manual, administrative processes, they’ve struggled with healthcare’s complexity: fragmented & legacy systems, messy workflows, multiple stakeholders and unstructured data. A report from McKinsey estimates that $1T+ is spent annually on healthcare administrative processes alone, representing a quarter of the total healthcare market.
This is exactly where Coral comes in.
Coral automates front-office processes like patient intake, eligibility and benefits verification, and prior authorizations. Instead of brittle scripts, Coral uses AI agents that understand documents, context, and intent. These agents can read unstructured data, integrate seamlessly with EHRs, and make rule-based decisions while maintaining full HIPAA and payer compliance. For users, every action and output is visible on Coral’s interface — a modern alternative to legacy payer portals, cluttered inboxes, and endless PDFs.
The result is true end-to-end automation — a system that just works. In under a year, Coral has onboarded some of the largest healthcare customers in the U.S. and now processes over 500,000 patients per month across DMEs, infusion centers, and specialty clinics.
The Future We See
We see Coral leading the shift toward AI-native process automation — where software, powered by modern AI, can finally execute complex tasks end-to-end: from document understanding to data entry to communication.
And while Coral is starting with healthcare, the opportunity extends far beyond. Industries like banking, insurance, and logistics face similar administrative burdens and are natural next frontiers.
We at Lightspeed couldn’t be more excited about Coral’s journey — and we’re proud to have been partners since day one!
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