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# Hike Medical Raises $22.5M to Fix How America Gets People Medical Devices
- URL: https://www.theinvestorsociety.com/hike-medical-raises-22-5m-to-fix-how-america-gets-people-medical-devices/
- Published: 2026-08-26T20:00:34.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-26T20:00:33.000Z
- Author: The Editor
- Tags: Western Hemisphere

Hike Medical, a San Francisco-based healthtech company, announced on August 25, 2026, that it raised $22.5 million in combined seed and Series A funding to expand beyond its original custom-insole business into the broader durable medical equipment (DME) supply chain. The round was led by Max Altman, co-founder and managing partner at Saga Ventures, with participation from Indicator Ventures, Fifth Down Capital, RiverPark Ventures, strategic partner Orthofeet Inc., and angel investors including Monaco CEO Sam Blond and former New England Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo. Hike Medical was co-founded and is led by CEO Aadi Bhanti, whose family has worked in orthotics and prosthetics across three generations.

The company automates the process of getting patients devices such as diabetic inserts, braces, prosthetic limbs and wheelchairs, an industry Bhanti says loses 60 cents of every dollar to waste, remakes and fraud, according to Hike's own research, out of the roughly $100 billion Americans spend annually on such devices. Hike's platform spans three components: AI agents that process insurance referrals and approvals before a doctor sees the patient, point-of-care clinical tools for mobile scanning and device ordering, and in-house 3D-printed manufacturing at what the company describes as the largest orthotic print facility in the country, located in Peoria, Illinois. The company says it has already cut wait times for custom insoles from weeks to days and reduced remake rates from 1 in 15 to 1 in 400.

### Market Context

Hike Medical's model reflects a broader shift among healthtech startups toward full vertical integration — owning referral intake, clinical workflow and manufacturing rather than layering software on top of an existing, fragmented supply chain. The company recently hired Jerry Tang as chief operating officer; Tang was employee No. 30 at logistics company Flexport, where he became SVP of Global Operations as the company scaled from a $100 million to an $8 billion valuation, and later served as COO at digital dental lab Dandy, joining at its Series A and helping the company reach unicorn status.

The new capital will fund engineering and sales hiring in San Francisco and expanded manufacturing capacity in Peoria as Hike moves beyond insoles into the wider DME category. The round also carries a notable investor-recognition hook: Max Altman is the brother of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, adding visibility to a sector — medical device logistics — that rarely draws headline attention on its own.

### The Signal

> "Full vertical integration is what it takes to recreate a business at scale in healthcare. We're backing Hike to do this across the entire device market."  
> — Max Altman, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Saga Ventures

### Regional Relevance

**For the United States:** The deal targets a structurally inefficient corner of U.S. healthcare — the roughly $100 billion device-based care market — where administrative friction and insurance approval bottlenecks have historically slowed patient access more than technology limitations have. If Hike's AI-driven referral automation and in-house manufacturing model scales beyond insoles, it could offer a template for reducing waste across adjacent DME categories, at a time when U.S. healthcare payers and providers are under pressure to cut administrative costs.

**For the healthtech and venture sector:** The round adds to a pattern of investors backing "full-stack" healthcare startups that combine software, clinical workflow and physical manufacturing rather than pure SaaS plays, a strategy also used by companies like digital dental lab Dandy, where Hike's new COO previously worked. For emerging fund managers, the deal is also a data point on how newer, smaller funds like Saga Ventures are competing for access to differentiated healthcare deals by leading rounds directly rather than co-investing alongside larger, established healthcare VCs.

### The Other Side

**Can a vertically integrated model — combining software, clinical scanning and physical manufacturing — scale as quickly as a pure software company?** Owning manufacturing capacity, as Hike does with its Peoria 3D-print facility, adds fixed costs and operational complexity that asset-light software startups don't carry, which could slow expansion into new device categories even if the underlying technology works.

**Is Hike's own waste and fraud data — the "60 cents of every dollar" figure — independently verified, or is it a company-commissioned estimate used to justify the opportunity size?** The figure comes from Hike's internally published research rather than a third-party payer or government study, so investors and readers should treat it as a directional claim rather than an audited industry benchmark.

**Does reliance on angel investors and a relatively small syndicate, rather than large healthcare-focused VC firms, signal limited institutional conviction, or simply an early-stage company that hasn't yet needed a larger round?** A $22.5 million combined seed-and-Series-A raise is modest relative to some AI-infrastructure deals this week, and the investor roster leans toward emerging managers and individual angels rather than established healthcare growth funds — a detail worth watching in Hike's next fundraising cycle.

### Sources & Transparency

- [Hike Medical Raises $22.5M to Modernize the Medical Device Supply Chain from Referral to Device Delivery](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260825007382/en/Hike-Medical-Raises-$22.5M-to-Modernize-the-Medical-Device-Supply-Chain-from-Referral-to-Device-Delivery?ref=theinvestorsociety.com)
- [Exclusive: Hike Medical raises $22.5M for medical equipment](https://www.axios.com/pro/health-tech-deals/2026/08/24/hike-medical-series-a-raise?ref=theinvestorsociety.com)
- [Hike Medical raises $22.5m to advance medical equipment supply provision](https://www.medicaldevice-network.com/news/hike-medical-raises-22m-to-advance-medical-equipment-supply-provision/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com)
- [Hike Medical Raises $22.5M in Seed And Series A Funding](https://www.finsmes.com/2026/08/hike-medical-raises-22-5m-in-seed-and-series-a-funding.html?ref=theinvestorsociety.com)
- [Hike Medical Raises $22.5 Million in Seed, Series A Funding](https://hme-business.com/hike-medical-raises-22-5-million-in-seed-series-a-funding/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com)
- [Hike Medical Raises $22.5M to Transform Device-Based Care](https://ventureburn.com/hike-medical-raises-22-5m-device-care/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com)