Houston Methodist Among Investors in Apella’s $80M Series B

In September 2025 Healthcare Innovation interviewed Roberta Schwartz, Ph.D., executive vice president and chief innovation officer at Houston Methodist, about the health system’s deployment of an AI-based platform for OR management developed by a company called Apella. The nine-hospital system deployed Apella’s technology in over 200 operating rooms.

‍Now Houston Methodist is one of the investors in an $80 million Series B fundraising by Apella. The round was led by HighlandX, with returning investors Vensana Capital, Casdin Capital, PFM Health Sciences, Upside Partnership, and Operator Partners, and includes new investors K2 HealthVentures, OpAmp Capital, and Houston Methodist. 

Other health systems deploying Apella’s platform include Tampa General Hospital and the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). ‍Apella’s platform uses computer vision and machine learning to automatically collect and identify up to 14 surgical case events and autonomously write data back to the EHR.

Schwarz described it to us this way: "Apella video-records what is happening in the OR and is taking the time stamps from every action and turning it into information. Patient on the table, patient draped, etc. What we found early on is that there were times where our people inputting this data — patient came in the room, patient left the room — were anywhere from 3 to 10 minutes inaccurate. When you're trying to move cases along and be more efficient, and understand  the average time for a particular doctor to do a spine case, those minutes add up. You’re trying to make the use of this precious resource incredibly efficient. Therefore, having this accurate information is great, and that's what we get from this.”

She added that “now the doctors get texts that say, patient wheeled in. It is sort of the same type of message you get with an airplane, right? We're boarding group one. They get that now from the operating rooms on their phone…..I think it's made us more efficient. It's made us better. We've been able to fit in more cases, and our doctors like the texts. We are able to schedule better. We're able to look at our blocks of time better.”

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“Ambient AI is transforming healthcare,” said David Schummers, Co-Founder and CEO of Apella, in a statement. “We have applied this technology to the most critical part of the health system: the operating room. Our customers have expanded beyond the pilot phase, bringing Apella’s product suite to enterprise scale. In doing so, health systems are unlocking additional capacity to serve more patients, faster.”

Apella said it has recently expanded its solution with Horizon, providing hospitals the most accurate case duration data and utilization predictions to optimize case scheduling and maximize resource capacity before the day begins. Additionally, the company’s technology is now being used across the procedural areas of the hospital, including interventional radiology, cardiology, and endoscopy.