Founders in the Seattle area are busy building software for health insurance, AI model tuning, construction processes, and hospital operations.

Our latest Startup Radar spotlights four early stage tech startups in the region: Amera, Clara, Oiyko, and Specbook AI.

Read on for brief descriptions of each company — along with pitch assessments from “Mean VC,” a GPT-powered critic offering a mix of encouragement and constructive criticism.

Check out past Startup Radar posts here, and email me at taylor@geekwire.com to flag other companies and startup news.

Amera

Founded: 2025

The business: Targeting health insurance payers with software that automates the claims processing workflow. Its product converts medical claim documents into structured data, replacing manual entry and supporting newer payment models. Amera is generating revenue, working with multiple plan administrators, and participating in the Fall 2025 cohort at Y Combinator.

Leadership: CEO Deep Kapur previously worked at Microsoft, Protocol Labs, and most recently Rupa Health. Co-founder Louise Tanski was also at Rupa Health and co-founded QueryStax (acquired by Moonshot Brands).

Mean VC: “You’re solving a real pain point in healthcare admin, and early revenue plus YC traction suggest you’re on the right track. The key will be proving your structured data actually drives measurable cost or accuracy improvements — not just faster paperwork.”

Clara

Founded: 2022

The business: A self-described “AI-powered operating room orchestration” platform for hospitals. Clara aims to be like Apple’s “Find My” app, but for patient care, helping hospital staff quickly locate equipment and people. The company has raised around $375,000 and is working with a lab at the University of Washington on a non-clinical pilot. 

Leadership: CEO Melinda Yormick has more than a decade of operating room experience as a registered nurse and nurse manager. She was named a 2025 “Up and Comer” at the PSBJ Healthcare Leadership Awards. Co-founder Aaron Cooke was previously a senior software engineer at Viome and Julep.

Mean VC: “The problem is clear to anyone who’s worked in a hospital, and your background gives you credibility where it counts. But unless you can tie this to patient outcomes or hard ROI, hospital budgets may treat it as a luxury.”

Oikyo

Founded: 2025

The business: Helps companies fine-tune AI models using their own data, enabling employees to add business-specific context. The company is participating in WTIA’s startup accelerator. 

Leadership: Co-founders Saptak Sen and Suchi Mohan first met at Microsoft in India in 2001. Sen, the CEO at Oiyko, was most recently a vice president at Tetrate and head of container integrations at AWS. Mohan was a senior technical program manager at Microsoft for more than four years.

Mean VC: “Fine-tuning with business context is a sharp idea, especially as enterprises grow wary of generic AI outputs. Still, you’ll need to show how you differ from the wave of enterprise LLM tooling coming from giants and better-funded peers.”

Specbook AI

Founded: 2025

The business: Builds AI agents for industrial and civic projects that can quickly analyze data and perform tasks such as design reviews and reviewing construction submittals. Specbook AI is working with large construction companies and municipalities. Contracted revenue is in the six figures. 

Leadership: Co-founders Gordon Hempton and Wes Hather co-founded Outreach, the Seattle-based sales software company. More recently they launched two startups: B2B sales software company FullContext and virtual work platform Spot.

Mean VC: “Digitizing construction reviews and civic workflows is overdue, and six-figure contracts suggest you’re solving a real pain. To scale, you’ll need to prove your product can handle diverse requirements without slipping into custom consulting.”