Of the five local businesses that participated in Monday night’s third annual Utah Tech Week Pitch Competition, Medicaidsoft — a company that streamlines the complex Medicaid application process for long-term care — emerged victorious as the winner of the $200,000 check, a dollar amount double that of last year’s winnings.
Second place was awarded to Lucidity Sciences, the company behind Aleph One — a machine learning technology that seeks to improve accuracy, efficiency and performance on complex problems by uncovering hidden patterns in data. Territories.ai, a platform designed to intelligently orchestrate revenue plans, came in third. The founders of modular data center company Helios and connective gaming platform Madder Games also pitched.
“The same way genealogy needed Ancestry or SMB accounting needed QuickBooks, Medicaid needs Medicaidsoft.”
— Spencer Taylor, Medicaidsoft CEO
The problem Medicaidsoft seeks to solve is a rampant one. During his pitch, Medicaidsoft CEO Spencer Taylor claimed that even top Medicaid law firms still manage cases via stacks of papers, three-ring binders and homegrown spreadsheets. Through its online platform, Medicaidsoft helps prepare long-term care applications by automatically integrating with financial data systems to collect bank statements and using AI to catch errors, resulting in 57 percent fewer rejections in half the time. The company has already formed a partnership with attorney-led firm Krause Financial, which is recommending Medicaidsoft to its platform of 4,000 elder law attorneys.
“Families are stuck trying to do the best they can [for their elders],” says Michael Haslam, co-founder and president of Medicaidsoft, who is also a practicing lawyer with expertise in elder and Medicaid law. “There are a lot of amazing people trying to help our seniors. Giving them really good tools to make their lives easier and make their job easier makes all the difference.”
Medicaidsoft beat out a total of 134 other applicants that initially applied to the pitch competition — a Utah Tech Week record, according to Chris Hjelm, general partner and head of venture investments at Connetic Ventures and one of the pitch competition’s judges. Another judge, Signal Peak Ventures Senior Associate Gaby Porras, says she voted for Medicaidsoft because of the company’s impressive traction.
“[Taylor] did a great job of telling the story of what they’re trying to build,” she continues. “It’s a hard problem to solve, but they’re doing it in a creative way that allows for alignment.”
Medicaidsoft’s winnings will go toward its $2 million seed round, which will prioritize marketing and client success. Taylor hopes the round will help Medicaidsoft add new clients and expand into new states, ultimately allowing the first-to-market software to help more people.
“The same way genealogy needed Ancestry or SMB accounting needed QuickBooks, Medicaid needs Medicaidsoft,” he says.
