OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research and deployment company, has announced its acquisition of health records startup Torch. While the official sum remains undisclosed, sources report the deal was valued at approximately $100 million in equity.
The acquisition sees Torch’s entire four-person team joining OpenAI to bolster its new health-focused initiative.
The Acqui-Hire And ChatGPT Health
This move is a strategic acqui-hire designed to integrate Torch’s talent and technology directly into OpenAI’s recently unveiled ChatGPT Health service. Torch was developing a platform to create a “medical memory for AI,” a sophisticated context engine that unifies a person’s scattered health records from various sources, including doctor visits, lab tests, wearables, and wellness apps.
In its announcement, OpenAI stated, “We’ve acquired Torch, a healthcare startup that unifies lab results, medications, and visit recordings. Bringing this together with ChatGPT Health opens up a new way to understand and manage your health.”
Torch co-founder Ilya Abyzov confirmed the move on X, stating, “The Torch team and I are joining OAI to help build ChatGPT Health into the best AI tool in the world for health and wellness.”
The Torch Team’s Journey
The Torch team, composed of Ilya Abyzov, Elad Harel, Jonathan Hamlin, and Ryan Oman, previously worked together at Forward Health, a high-profile company known for its AI-powered doctors’ offices. Despite raising over $400 million, Forward Health abruptly shut down in late 2024, making this acquisition a significant new chapter for its former talent.
Implications For The MENA Health-Tech Scene
While this acquisition involves US-based companies, it sends a powerful signal to the global technology landscape, including the burgeoning health-tech sector in the MENA region. OpenAI’s aggressive move into personalized healthcare validates the immense market potential for AI-driven health solutions. For MENA’s founders and VCs, this underscores the value of startups that can solve complex data fragmentation problems in healthcare—a challenge prevalent across the region.
The $100 million valuation for a small, specialized team highlights the premium placed on deep domain expertise in the AI era. This could inspire increased investment and talent development in AI-focused health-tech startups across innovation hubs like Dubai, Riyadh, and Cairo, as they aim to build localized solutions for patient data management and personalized care.
About OpenAI
OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company. Its mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI)—by which we mean highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work—benefits all of humanity. The company is known for its groundbreaking models, including the GPT series of language models and the DALL-E image generation models.
Source: TechCrunch
