Editor’s be aware: The following is the sixth profile in a sequence of articles about startup founders from non-technical backgrounds who’ve launched profitable venture-backed corporations. Read the earlier interviews with MagicSchool AI founder Adeel Khan right here, Trunk Tools founder Sarah Buchner right here, Tabs founder Ali Hussain right here, Craft founder Ilya Levtov right here, and GC AI founder Cecilia Ziniti right here.
After finishing medical college in London, Iman Abuzeid determined to not pursue a residency. Her father was dissatisfied.
But she didn’t change her thoughts as a result of she misplaced curiosity in healthcare. Instead, Abuzeid realized she needed to work on issues affecting extra individuals than she may deal with individually.
Abuzeid went on to co-found Incredible Health, a San Francisco-based healthcare hiring platform that has raised about $97.5 million from buyers akin to Andreessen Horowitz, Base10 Partners, Obvious Ventures, Precursor Ventures and NFX. It says its merchandise are utilized by 1.5 million healthcare professionals — together with 1 in 2 U.S. nurses — and 1,500 healthcare employers.
Before launching Incredible Health in 2017, Abuzeid educated as a health care provider, suggested healthcare corporations at Booz Allen and McKinsey, and labored as a product supervisor at a well being tech startup, however didn’t know the way to code software program.
An M.D. who selected to not observe
Originally from Sudan, Abuzeid was born and raised in Saudi Arabia and in addition lived within the United Arab Emirates. She moved to London at 18, the place she accomplished her undergraduate schooling and medical college.
Her curiosity in enterprise predated her medical profession. Both of her grandfathers have been entrepreneurs in Sudan, and she or he grew up listening to concerning the corporations they constructed. By medical college, she was more and more drawn to the attain that entrepreneurship and expertise may supply.
After incomes her medical diploma, Abuzeid immigrated to New York at age 24. Her time in healthcare consulting at Booz Allen and McKinsey uncovered her to the technique, operations and economics behind the healthcare system, she stated.
She later earned an MBA from the Wharton School, specializing in healthcare and entrepreneurship, and moved to San Francisco in 2013.
There, she joined an early-stage healthcare expertise firm as a product supervisor. The position taught her the way to work with engineers, information scientists and designers, in addition to how software program merchandise are constructed and grown.
It was additionally the place she met Rome Portlock, the software program engineer who would turn out to be her co-founder at Incredible Health.
Abuzeid nonetheless doesn’t code, though she has experimented with newer AI-assisted coding instruments. Portlock, an MIT-trained engineer who she calls “the best engineer I’ve ever worked with,” has led Incredible Health’s engineering and information groups from the start.
But Abuzeid, the startup’s CEO, argues {that a} software program founder’s central job isn’t writing code.
“At the end of the day, when it comes to creating software companies, it’s about solving problems,” she stated. “It’s about identifying the markets, understanding the problems customers are facing and figuring out ways to solve them.”
A mismatch in healthcare hiring
The downside behind Incredible Health surfaced by means of conversations the founders have been having with individuals they knew.
Doctors in Abuzeid’s household and circle of buddies steadily complained about understaffing. At the identical time, nurses in Portlock’s household described making use of to quite a few jobs and sometimes receiving no response.
The two accounts didn’t line up. Healthcare is the most important U.S. labor sector by variety of employees, Abuzeid stated, and it faces extreme staffing shortages. Yet skilled nurses have been struggling to get the eye of employers that urgently wanted them.
“We started to dig into it more, and we were like, ‘This doesn’t make any sense,’” she recollects.
The founders found that hospital recruiting groups have been typically small, overwhelmed by applicant quantity, and reliant on handbook processes.
Incredible Health’s market reverses the standard hiring course of in order that employers are literally those making use of to healthcare employees. The software program automates screening and matching for everlasting jobs at hospitals, surgical procedure facilities, residence well being organizations and different healthcare services.
The service is free for healthcare professionals. Employers pay an annual subscription to make use of {the marketplace} and the corporate’s different hiring software program. Customers embody Kaiser Permanente, Tenet Health, Trinity Health and Johns Hopkins.
A selective strategy to fundraising
Incredible Health has raised roughly $97 million throughout seed, Series A and Series B rounds.
It was a course of, she admits. She spoke with about 70 buyers whereas elevating the corporate’s seed spherical. Eight invested, together with Obvious Ventures and Precursor Ventures.
At that stage, Abuzeid stated, she needed to educate buyers concerning the healthcare labor market and persuade them that she and Portlock have been the precise founders to handle it.
“I think it was the vision and the mission and the team,” she stated. “At that point, you’re really investing in the founders.”
Each of Incredible Health’s funding rounds was oversubscribed, Abuzeid stated. She attributes that partly to elevating from a place of economic energy. The firm typically operates near cash-flow break-even and at instances has been cash-flow constructive.
“I don’t want to be the first,” she stated. “I’m not here to overcome someone’s bias. That’s not a good use of my time.”
While she acknowledges structural disparities in enterprise funding, Abuzeid stated she didn’t select to work with Portlock as a result of she believed she wanted a male co-founder. Rather, she acknowledged {that a} sturdy technical companion would stability her personal abilities and talents.
Overall, Abuzeid believes feminine founders typically want to emphasise ambition. In her view, buyers are used to listening to expansive visions from male founders, and girls must be equally vocal concerning the measurement of the businesses they intend to construct.
“It’s really important to be ambitious and to be very clear about your vision and what you’re trying to achieve,” she stated.
Automating the primary interview
In 2025, like many different startups, Incredible Health integrated AI into its product lineup.
The firm developed the brokers with healthcare techniques together with Baylor Scott & White Health, Sutter Health, Johns Hopkins and Tenet Health. Working with clients throughout the growth course of made it simpler for Incredible Health to include the expertise into established enterprise workflows, Abuzeid famous.
One agent, Lyn, conducts the preliminary recruiter interview, asks medical and behavioral questions, explains an employer’s worth proposition, and discusses obtainable roles. It then fingers the candidate off for a potential interview with a hiring supervisor.
A second agent, Gail, helps healthcare professionals create résumés and observe for interviews.
Abuzeid stated Lyn has lowered hiring time by 30%. Three-quarters of interviews now happen inside 24 hours of a candidate making use of, in contrast with as much as two weeks beforehand. About 40% happen at night time or on weekends, when recruiters are much less more likely to be obtainable.
The AI merchandise clearly prolong Incredible Health’s preliminary mission of eradicating hiring delays within the healthcare trade. They additionally replicate the founders’ complementary roles. Portlock continues to supervise engineering, information and technical structure, whereas Abuzeid’s work attracts on her expertise throughout medication, healthcare consulting and product administration.
For Abuzeid, that distinction exhibits why she doesn’t contemplate technical chops a prerequisite for founding a software program firm.
“At the end of the day, when it comes to creating software companies,” she stated, “it’s about solving problems.”
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