Imagine waking up each morning and feeling as if you’re breathing through a straw. A trip from the bedroom to the bathroom leaves you winded. A simple conversation becomes punctuated by coughs. For millions of older adults living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease — COPD — this is the rhythm of daily life. The illness gradually damages the airways and the tiny air sacs in the lungs, making it harder to move air in and out. It can turn the most ordinary tasks into exhausting feats, and because there is no cure, it often feels like a slow, inevitable decline. But it doesn’t have to be that way. There are proven ways to help people with COPD feel better, breathe easier and stay out of hospitals. The challenge is that too many patients never get that help. That’s where Kivo Health comes in. The Seattle-based startup announced $10 million in Series A funding on Tuesday, money that will help bring its home-based care model to more older adults. The round brings Kivo’s total backing to more than $16 million, a meaningful sign that investors believe in a more humane, proactive approach to chronic lung disease. Kivo’s model is straightforward in concept but profound in impact. It sends equipment to a patient’s home and then connects them with a therapist over live video for nine weeks of structured sessions. Those sessions are built around gentle exercise, better breathing techniques and tools for managing the disease day to day. The goal is not simply to delay the disease’s worst moments, but to help people feel stronger, more confident and more in control of their own bodies. In a health care system that often waits until someone is very sick before acting, Kivo is trying to flip the script. It is a reminder that some of the most powerful health interventions are not high-tech gadgets but simple, human-centered care delivered where people actually live.
At the heart of Kivo’s program is a simple belief: rehabilitation doesn’t have to happen in a hospital or a clinic. For some people, especially older adults with limited mobility or no easy way to get to appointments, leaving home for care is a major barrier. Kivo removes that barrier. Once a patient is enrolled, a package of equipment arrives at their door, along with everything needed to participate in the program. Then, over the next nine weeks, they meet regularly with a therapist through live video calls. These aren’t passive lectures. They’re hands-on, interactive sessions where patients learn how to strengthen their breathing muscles, move safely and manage the everyday challenges of COPD. They practice exercises under the watchful eye of a clinician who can correct their form, encourage their efforts and adjust the plan as they improve. They learn how to pace themselves, conserve energy and recognize the warning signs that mean they need extra help. And once the nine-week program ends, Kivo doesn’t disappear. The company provides ongoing support, helping patients maintain their gains and keep building on them. Technology plays a supporting role throughout. Kivo uses artificial intelligence to handle administrative tasks like scheduling and follow-up messages, and to communicate with patients in a way that feels personal rather than robotic. That frees up the clinical team to spend more time doing what matters most: listening, teaching and caring. It’s a partnership between human wisdom and machine efficiency, aimed at one very human outcome — helping people breathe a little easier. For an older adult who has spent years feeling isolated by illness, having a clinician appear on the screen with a kind voice and a clear plan can be genuinely transformative. It turns the abstract idea of “managing a disease” into something tangible, doable and even hopeful.
The new funding will accelerate this work, particularly Kivo’s development of an AI health coach. Dr. Victor Sadauskas, Kivo’s co-founder and CEO, describes the vision as a blend of AI-led care and human-led care. In practice, that could mean an AI assistant that checks in with patients between sessions, asks how they’re feeling, reminds them about exercises and flags concerns for a human clinician. It could mean personalized recommendations based on a patient’s progress, delivered at the moment they’re most likely to act on them. But the goal is not to replace people. It’s to scale the type of proactive, compassionate care that has always been difficult to deliver outside a one-on-one setting. By pairing artificial intelligence with a skilled team of clinicians, Kivo can offer older adults a higher level of attention and follow-through than traditional models can provide. Sadauskas knows this world from the inside. He spent years as an emergency medicine physician at Kaiser Permanente, where he saw firsthand what happens when chronic disease goes unmanaged. He also worked as a senior investment fellow with Life Science Angels, learning how promising health care innovations are built and funded. His co-founder, Vaughn Koch, brings a different but complementary set of skills. Koch is a serial entrepreneur with a track record of building successful technology companies; his startup Movity was sold to Trulia in 2010. Together they have built Kivo into a team of roughly 50 people, including a group of clinicians who work directly with patients. For Sadauskas, this funding is about more than hiring engineers or adding product features. It’s about expanding Kivo’s footprint to reach more seniors who desperately need a better way to live with COPD. It’s about proving that the health system can do better than waiting for emergency rooms to become the last resort.
To understand why Kivo’s mission matters, it helps to look at the disease itself. COPD is not a rare condition. It’s a major global health crisis, currently the third leading cause of death worldwide and the fifth leading cause in the United States. The numbers are staggering, but behind them are real people with real struggles. Common symptoms include shortness of breath, a persistent cough that often brings up mucus, and a constant feeling of fatigue. Simple activities like dressing, cooking or taking a shower can become overwhelming. Over time, the disease can also take a psychological toll, leading to anxiety, depression and social isolation. Many patients stop leaving their homes because they’re afraid of not being able to breathe. Yet despite all this, there is good news: COPD can be managed. Treatments such as pulmonary rehabilitation, medication and lifestyle changes can significantly improve symptoms and quality of life. The problem is access. Most patients never receive the care that could help them. A study of Medicare beneficiaries with COPD found that only 3.7% received pulmonary rehabilitation in 2012. That means nearly all patients missed out on a therapy that can reduce breathlessness, increase exercise capacity and improve emotional well-being. Why are rates so low? There are many reasons. Some patients live far from rehab centers. Others don’t have reliable transportation. Many are never referred by their doctors, or they don’t know the service exists. For others, the cost is prohibitive. Kivo was designed to overcome these barriers by bringing the rehabilitation experience into the living room. Rather than asking a frail 75-year-old to find a ride to a clinic, Kivo makes the care come to them. It’s a simple concept with the power to transform how chronic disease is treated in this country, especially for people who have been ignored or forgotten by a system that too often rewards quick fixes instead of lasting solutions.
Does it work? Kivo says the evidence is encouraging. A peer-reviewed study of the company’s program found that participants experienced meaningful improvements in their symptoms, physical function and mental health. The study measured real outcomes, not just patient satisfaction — people were able to do more, breathe better and feel less burdened by their disease. Kivo also commissioned a separate analysis that looked at the economic impact of its model. The analysis estimated that the program could reduce annual health care spending by $8,245 per member by cutting down on hospitalizations, emergency room visits and time spent in nursing homes. For an individual patient, those savings translate into fewer frightening trips to the ER and more days spent in the comfort of their own home. For the health care system as a whole, they represent a smarter use of resources. This is especially important because COPD is one of the most costly chronic conditions in the country, and much of that cost comes from preventable crises. When patients don’t learn how to manage their disease, they end up back in the hospital, often within days or weeks. Kivo’s model tries to break that cycle by giving patients the knowledge and confidence they need to stay healthy. Payers seem to be listening. Kivo says its program is covered by Medicare, Medicaid and a range of private insurers, including UnitedHealthcare, Humana, Blue Cross, Aetna and Priority Health. That means patients don’t have to choose between their health and their finances. The combination of clinical evidence, cost savings and broad insurance coverage makes Kivo a compelling option for health plans looking to improve care while reducing costs. But for the people who use the service, the real measure of success is more personal. It’s the ability to take a deep breath, play with a grandchild or sleep through the night without waking up gasping for air.
Kivo was founded in 2023 by Sadauskas and Koch, and it has grown quickly since then. The company’s current focus is COPD, but the long-term vision is much bigger. Chronic diseases like COPD don’t exist in isolation. Many older adults live with multiple conditions at once — heart disease, diabetes, kidney problems — and the same barriers that prevent them from getting pulmonary rehabilitation also prevent them from getting other types of care. Kivo intends to expand into other costly chronic conditions that disproportionately affect older adults, using the same playbook: home-based equipment, live video therapy, ongoing support and AI-powered tools to help clinicians work more efficiently. If the model works for COPD, it could work for other diseases where proactive, patient-centered care makes a dramatic difference. The new round of funding will help make that expansion possible. Allumia Ventures led the investment, with participation from Corewell Health Ventures, Y Combinator, Heuristic Capital and MassMutual Ventures. Y Combinator’s involvement is notable; it signals that Kivo is not just a health care mission but also a promising startup with scalable technology and a clear path to growth. For Sadauskas, the funding is a validation of the company’s belief that high-quality clinical care and artificial intelligence can work in harmony. “By thoughtfully combining high quality clinical care with AI, we can now scale proactive, accessible care to every senior, improving symptoms and reducing avoidable costs,” he said. That vision is both ambitious and deeply humane. It says that older adults deserve more than just disease management — they deserve care that helps them live fully, with as much strength and dignity as possible. As Kivo takes its next steps, the hope is that more people will get the chance to breathe easier, not just because they have access to medicine, but because someone thoughtfully designed a system to help them thrive.
