In the wake of being accepted into Google’s startup accelerator for female founders, Saint John-based MedReddie has raised a $782,000 pre-seed round as it looks to scale its AI system that streamlines the procurement process for healthcare providers.

In a statement, the company described the round as oversubscribed and said it included BDC’s Thrive Lab, the Firehood industry group and angel network for women in tech, New York-based Forum Ventures and the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, along with government grants. The money is earmarked for hiring and product development work meant to underpin an expansion in Canada and a push into the U.S. hospital market.

MedReddie is the brainchild of CEO Kara LeBlanc, who has spent more than 12 years working in medical procurement and held multiple senior roles at Service New Brunswick.

“I founded MedReddie because I knew there was a better way to help healthcare organizations acquire the technologies and services they need while also supporting medtech suppliers with new marketing channels,” she said. “We’ve built a platform that simplifies the process, saves considerable time and resources, and ultimately allows healthcare professionals to focus on what matters most: patient care.”

MedReddie’s software-as-a-service product uses a suite of proprietary language models developed specifically for medical work as an “intelligent co-pilot, enabling rapid identification of market solutions and facilitating faster procurement decisions.” The company says its technology is meant to reduce the burden on the large, expensive procurement teams currently relied on by many organizations, automating research that has traditionally been performed by human employees.

Medical supply businesses, meanwhile, are incentivized to make their product information available to the platform because the MedReddie platform offers another way to reach buyers.

In March, LeBlanc’s company was among three Canadian startups chosen to participate in Google for Startups: Women Founders, which is a 10-week program originally launched in 2020. Its graduates have collectively raised more than US$93 million since then.

“(MedReddie) is already trialing … with paying customers and has established solid partnerships with strong brands including (industry association) Medtech Canada and others within the U.S. hospital system,” said Firehood Co-Founder Claudette McGowan.