How Nirvana Raised $24.2M by Solving the Most Frustrating Part of Healthcare

When Kelvin Chan needed a therapist, the hardest part wasn’t finding one, it was figuring out which one his insurance would actually cover.

“I remember stepping out of work meetings just to call my insurance company. It felt ridiculous. I was building transparent financial systems, and yet I couldn’t even find a doctor with confidence about what I’d pay.”

That frustration became the spark that started it all. Today, Nirvana is a venture-backed startup with $24.2 million raised, powering seamless insurance verification across digital health platforms and provider offices nationwide. But before they became the quiet AI engine behind smoother check-ins, the team spent years just trying to understand the problem, up close.

From FinTech to Front Desk

Kelvin didn’t jump straight into coding. He started by calling clinics, posing as a biller, and manually processing claims just to learn the system’s intricacies.

“I’d literally be charging credit cards one by one. I believe in learning how tough the job is before solving it with engineering.”

That deep-dive approach led to an insight that now anchors Nirvana’s products: patients need to know two things –  Am I covered? And what will it cost?

Simple questions. Incredibly hard to answer in real time. And yet, that’s precisely what Nirvana now does via a clean API and user-friendly application, OneVerify, that reduces friction for both patients and providers.

Fixing the Drop-Off Problem in Healthcare

Kelvin explains: “If you’re a digital health company and can’t tell someone they’re covered before booking, they won’t book. There’s a huge drop-off.”

The same goes for brick-and-mortar clinics, many of which still verify insurance manually and get it wrong. The cost of getting it wrong? Over $100 billion is lost annually in the U.S. healthcare system due to manual verification, denied claims, rework, collections, and write-offs. Providers don’t get paid. Patients face surprise bills or worse, lifelong medical debt.

“Our product makes verifications accurate. That one fix unlocks trust and efficiency across the whole system.”

A Startup That Didn’t Rush to Build

It took Nirvana a year of learning and testing before they landed on their current product.

“The idea you start with won’t be the one you scale. Speed of iteration is your real edge.”

Once they narrowed their focus to verification, things began to click. The team found product-market fit in early 2023. By September 2024, they had raised a $24.2M Series A led by Northzone.

Yet even now, the team remains lean. “Most of us are engineers or PMs. We believe in product-led growth. If you’re excellent at one thing, partners will come to you.”

Building With Partners Who Share Your Values

Partnerships are now a core part of Nirvana’s growth strategy and one of Kelvin’s key focus areas as founder and CEO.

One of the most exciting recent collaborations? A partnership with CLEAR, the biometric identity company known for speeding up airport security. Together, they’re helping patients verify insurance with just a name, date of birth, and zip code – no insurance card required.

“A lot of people don’t know where their insurance card is. Even if they do, they hate typing in 20 digits – it’s slow, frustrating, and easy to mess up. We built a way to verify with just what you know about yourself.”

Clear’s identity infrastructure enables even facial recognition-based insurance verification at check-in, especially in large health systems across the South. It’s a futuristic-sounding fix for a very old problem: too much friction at the front door of healthcare.

Staying Hands-On – Even After Scaling

Despite the scale Nirvana is reaching, Kelvin remains close to the details.

“I stay involved in our biggest partnerships. You want to make sure your partners reflect your values. Not everyone in this industry is here to promote price transparency.”

For Nirvana, alignment on mission isn’t a checkbox – it’s a moat.

What Founders Should Really Obsess Over

Kelvin’s most valuable advice for early-stage founders?

“Iterate quickly. Don’t romanticize the first version of your idea.”

He adds:

“People overvalue the idea and undervalue the process. Speed of experimentation is the only sustainable advantage a startup has.”

It’s the kind of lesson that doesn’t just sound good, it’s hard-earned. Kelvin and his co-founders didn’t raise capital on a pitch deck. They built Nirvana by getting close to the pain and not flinching.

Paying It Forward

Kelvin’s journey is a reminder that tech doesn’t have to be flashy to be meaningful. Sometimes, solving one frustrating problem – really well – is enough to change an industry.

He didn’t build Nirvana to get headlines. He built it so you wouldn’t have to dread your next trip to the doctor.

And in doing so, he’s created something worth far more than funding: trust.