Meet Pranitha Patil: Indian American woman who dropped out of Harvard and then went on to build a $2.5 billion AI-powered company

Pranitha Patil, Co-Founder and CBO of Function Health. (Photo Credit: Courtesy of Stanford Consumer Health Summit)

An Indian American entrepreneur dropped out of Harvard to build a healthcare company around an idea that came from her own medical journey. Pranitha Patil, who was diagnosed with PCOS and pre-diabetes when she was in her early 20s, wanted a healthcare system that could identify warning signs before they became bigger problems. That idea became Function, a preventive health platform using extensive testing, medical imaging and AI to make preventive healthcare more accessible. Today, Function is valued at $2.5 billion.

Her own health journey sparked the idea

Pranitha Patil.

Patil said she realised that the healthcare system often responds only after something goes wrong. “The healthcare system is set up so that you only go once you have a problem,” she said. “Had I seen these signs way earlier, these markers being elevated, I would’ve done something about it,” she told the Entrepreneur.While studying for a master’s in design engineering at Harvard, Patil began thinking about what a more proactive healthcare system could look like. She initially assumed that a comprehensive preventive health platform must already exist somewhere. But she could not find one that brought everything together in the way she imagined.Then she met Jonathan Swerdlin, who later became Function’s CEO. “I was like, ‘This product needs to exist.’ It was a no-brainer; there wasn’t a lot of hesitation,” she told the Entrepreneur.Patil eventually connected with the rest of the founding team, Swerdlin, Dr Mark Hyman, Seth Weisfeld and Dan Swerdlin and decided to take the biggest step of her career.She dropped out of Harvard before completing the program. “I ended up dropping out of the Harvard program early to bring the company to life,” she said.

From blood tests to AI-powered health insights

Function launched in beta to the public in 2023. The platform was built around the idea that an annual physical, while useful, provides only a limited picture of a person’s health. “The typical annual physical gives you a snapshot of your health at one point in time,” Patil said.The company provides members access to more than 160 lab tests, advanced MRI and CT imaging, and AI-powered insights designed to help them understand their results and decide what to do next.But building the company meant first convincing investors to believe in something that did not yet exist.

Convincing investors to believe in the bigger picture

Function launched in beta to the public in 2023.

Patil said Function started with a focus on blood and urine testing, but the founders always saw it as the first step towards something much bigger. “The most challenging part in the early days and this is true of building any company was convincing investors of the bigger vision when it wasn’t here yet,” she said.The pitch was straightforward: start with comprehensive lab testing, build an unprecedented health data set and eventually combine it with imaging, wearable data and artificial intelligence. “Picture how incredible that could be,” Patil said.Investors eventually bought into that vision. Function is now valued at $2.5 billion. But Patil says the company’s ambition goes far beyond its current valuation. “Our goal is to reach eight billion people as quickly as possible,” she said. “We mean that; that’s been the throughline for us since day one.”

“We’re in our act two”

Patil describes Function’s journey in two parts. The first phase was about building the foundation: getting the testing right, attracting members and encouraging people to monitor their health regularly. “For act one to be successful, we had to lay the foundation with the labs,” she said.That behaviour change, she believes, has now happened. “Now, people are excited about seeing how their labs have changed, or their biological age has come down,” she said.The next phase is about using all that information to offer a deeper understanding of health. “We always knew there was more to build,” Patil said. For her, the opportunity is particularly significant because healthcare has been slow to adopt technology compared with other industries.“There’s so much to be done in this industry compared to the financial industry or any other industry,” she said. “We’re always 10 years behind most of the big industries.” AI, she believes, could help close that gap quickly.