BREAKING: Fired by Elon, Meta, & Wendy’s, Alex Cohen Raises $22.5M Series A for Hello Patient
Led by Scale Venture Partners
*WARNING*
Alex Cohen has one of the wildest founder journeys in tech. Fired over 11 times - including Elon Musk’s X, Meta, CrowdStrike, & even Wendy’s - he’s now the Founder & CEO of Hello Patient, an AI platform transforming how healthcare practices engage with patients.
→ Listen on X, Spotify, YouTube, Apple
In this conversation, Alex & I dive into his underdog story, his viral parody videos —including the latest Jony Ive/Sam Altman spoof for the funding — his 220k+ X following, why meme lord storytelling is the ultimate founder superpower, & yes, even his latest experiments with peptides...
Which all leads back to Alex announcing Hello Patient’s $22.5M Series A led by Scale Venture Partners, bringing Hello Patient’s total funding to $30M. This round includes continued support from 8VC, Bling Capital, Max Ventures, & Remus Capital, to build the future of conversational AI in healthcare.
I really don't know how I kept this one quiet.. but don't say, there weren't signs..
P.S. there is a lot of laughing in this interview
Deeper Dive & Full Public Firing Record Below
Highlights
The Underdog Story: Alex was fired 11 times before founding Hello Patient, a history that fuels his authenticity and self-deprecating humor.
Parody as Marketing: Launch videos parodying Humane & Sam Altman/Jony Ive aren’t gimmicks - they are strategic brand moments that drive massive inbound traction.
Fundraising Success: Hello Patient raised a $22.5M Series A led by Scale Venture Partners, with participation from 8VC, Bling Capital, Max Ventures, and others.
Healthcare AI Impact: Hello Patient powers omnichannel patient engagement -calls, texts, and chatbots - for urgent care, ENT, mental health, med spas, and more, solving staffing shortages and missed appointments.
The X Factor: With 220k+ followers, Alex’s shitposting persona is more than comedy—it’s storytelling that gives him investor access, customer inbound, and cultural relevance
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Timestamps
(00:00) Underdog Story
(01:40) Getting Fired 11 Times
(02:38) Creating the Launch Video Parody
(03:32) Recreating Sam Altman's Look
(06:01) Reviewing Past Company Firings
(10:41) Transition from Carbon Health to Hello Patient
(13:02) Series A Fundraising Process
(14:35) Storytelling, Social Media & Fundraising
(30:03) Company Growth & Metrics
(31:55) Technical Stack & AI Partnerships
(38:08) Team and Hiring
(41:53) Deep Dive into Peptides
(46:23) Discussion on Weight Loss Peptides
(50:36) American Food System & Health
(53:03) Predictions on Jony Ive & Sam Altman's Device
Reinventing the “Front Door” of Healthcare
With $30M in total funding, the company’s mission is clear: to fix healthcare’s broken “front door,” aka the communication systems that determine whether patients can access timely care.
Across the U.S., up to 42% of patient calls and texts can go unanswered during busy hours due to staffing shortages and overwhelmed call centers. Hello Patient solves this by delivering a 10x better solution. In less than a year, Hello Patient has powered more than 100,000 phone calls and 300,000 patient conversations.
Hello Patient builds conversational AI agents that handle patient-facing workflows across phone, text, and web chat. Instead of patients waiting on hold, missing appointments, or navigating clunky portals, Hello Patient automates scheduling, reminders, follow-ups, and inbound calls.
The system is already deployed across urgent care, ENT, behavioral health, med spas, and primary care, giving clinics 24/7 coverage while reducing missed calls and boosting patient satisfaction. With staffing shortages across the healthcare industry, Hello Patient steps in as the digital front desk—scalable, HIPAA-compliant, and deeply integrated with practice management systems.
“We build conversational AI for healthcare practices that exclusively deal with patient-facing communication,” said Alex Cohen on Sourcery. “If you call inbound to a clinic, we want to answer the phone. If you want to run a campaign and reach out to a patient to get them in for a missed allergy shot, we want to call outbound or text outbound.”
Why Healthcare Needs This Now
Healthcare has long lagged behind industries like banking or travel in digitization. Outdated call centers and clunky patient portals often mean patients are left waiting, frustrated, or forced to seek another provider. As Cohen explained, the industry’s challenges became undeniable in 2024:
“Everything kind of shifted beginning of this year. The voices and the latency and the intelligence finally got to a minimum acceptable place where people said, ‘Okay, I want to experiment with this in my clinics now,’”
Hello Patient fills this gap with always-on AI agents that handle phone calls, SMS, & chat—booking appointments, answering questions, and following up with patients.
The Product Vision
Unlike generic engagement software that sends static reminders, Hello Patient delivers true conversational AI. Its agents operate across multiple channels like voice, text, and chat, fully integrated with electronic health records and practice management systems.
“We are full omnichannel, inbound and outbound, exclusively for healthcare, exclusively for patient-facing workflow,” Cohen explained.
Already, Hello Patient has powered more than 400,000 patient conversations, serving urgent care, ENT, behavioral health, med spas, and primary care groups.
The Underdog Story
Alex Cohen’s path to building Hello Patient is anything but typical.
*Fired from more than 11 jobs, including: Astronomer, Elon Musk, Meta, Wendy’s, Crowdstrike, the Harris Campaign, DEI coordinator for the IRS, Google, Twitter badge access, & Carbon Health.. he’s had a rough start.
But now, with $30M in total funding.. the only person who can fire him, is himself.
Full public X firing history below
*Alex wasn’t actually fired. But his X persona was. Gathering millions of views. Follow Alex.
Storytelling Meme Lord Genius
Alex Cohen is, at his core, a storytelling genius. Long before Hello Patient, his ability to frame complex situations with sharp humor and clarity made him stand out. That superpower naturally translated to X, where his posts routinely generate millions of views, thousands of likes, & viral traction that extends well beyond tech circles. His audience includes not only founders and investors but also celebrities, major consumer brands, & even billionaires who have reached out directly after seeing his work.
“I never thought I’d be viral on Twitter,” Cohen admitted. “For whatever reason, I’ve always had a satirical, terrible sense of humor. Twitter was the perfect medium for just posting dumb, satirical stories or jokes. I still do it for the love of the game. There’s no ulterior motive.”
What makes this skill so powerful is how seamlessly it supports his work as a founder. The same narrative instincts that create viral moments online have given Cohen a direct line to investors, partners, and customers, while building trust at scale. It also gave him confidence to pursue his real passion—healthcare.
After leaving Carbon Health, where he led patient engagement and call center operations, Cohen set out to build Hello Patient, an AI company designed to fix the “front door” of healthcare. His ability to communicate the problem and solution with conviction was instrumental in quickly launching Hello Patient, raising $30M in funding to date, and positioning the company as a category-defining platform for patient communications
Looking Ahead
With this new round, Hello Patient will expand its product capabilities and scale nationwide. The goal: millions of patient conversations per day, thousands of clinics powered by AI, and a healthcare system where missed calls and unanswered texts are a thing of the past.
“Our next 12-month goal is to scale to thousands of clinics live with us, answering the phone when it comes inbound, doing all their outbound campaigns,” Cohen said. “If we’re having a bunch of resolved conversations independently of a human being involved, then we’re doing our job well.”
As Scale Venture Partners’ Jeremy Kaufmann put it: “Hello Patient stands out as the category-defining platform, solving one of healthcare’s biggest bottlenecks—the communication gap between patients and providers”.
Fired Every Time.
Elon Musk, Astronomer, Meta, Wendy’s, Crowdstrike, the IRS, Harris Campaign, Google, & more..
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