Mandolin, a trailblazer in AI-powered automation for the specialty drug lifecycle, has raised $40 million in funding to radically simplify how life-saving medications are delivered across the U.S. healthcare system. The round was led by Greylock Partners, with participation from SignalFire, Maverick Capital, SV Angel, Jerry Yang, and Guillermo Rauch. This injection of capital will propel Mandolin’s mission to eliminate bottlenecks in specialty drug delivery, empowering providers to serve patients faster, with fewer administrative burdens.

In a sector plagued by delays, fragmented workflows, and overburdened care coordinators, Mandolin’s AI agents provide an end-to-end solution. From patient intake and benefits verification to prior authorizations and revenue cycle management, Mandolin automates the traditionally manual processes that cost providers time and patients precious access to care.

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Solving the Bottleneck in Specialty Drug Workflows

Unlike traditional pharmaceuticals, specialty drugs come with complex logistics. They often require insurance authorizations, cold-chain delivery, and custom infusion services - each step layered with paperwork and human coordination. For many clinics, this translates to an overwhelmed administrative staff, delayed treatments, and missed revenue.

Mandolin’s AI agents act like virtual co-pilots for these workflows. They’re trained to handle high-volume repetitive tasks that slow clinics down - verifying coverage, flagging authorization issues, and tracking claim status in real time. This increases patient throughput without expanding headcount, giving providers a scalable way to meet rising demand.

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Why It Matters Now

The specialty drug market in the U.S. is exploding. According to IQVIA, over 55% of drug spending in 2023 was on specialty medications, despite them comprising only a small percentage of total prescriptions. And with the number of FDA-approved specialty drugs projected to grow by 8% annually, the pressure on healthcare systems is mounting.

At the same time, care providers are facing staff shortages and cost constraints. A report from the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) found that 74% of practices reported administrative staff burnout due to manual data entry and insurance workflows.

Here’s what Mandolin gets right that many startups in healthtech overlook: they aren’t just building tools, they’re building trust at scale. When AI enters a life-critical domain like healthcare, the winners aren’t the fastest movers—they’re the most consistent problem-solvers. Mandolin’s infrastructure quietly replaces fragility with resilience, embedding itself not just in workflows, but in clinical certainty.

This is a critical learning curve for founders in regulated or high-stakes industries: the real value isn’t automating what works—it’s stabilizing what breaks. Products that can tolerate messy data, edge cases, and institutional inertia—while still producing reliable outcomes—build moats that move slower, but last longer.

Mandolin isn’t aiming to dazzle with a flashy dashboard. They’re aiming to become invisible. And that’s where real product power lives—when your platform is so embedded in daily operations, removing it becomes more painful than any alternative.

Mandolin addresses both sides of this crisis—providing scalable automation where human labor can’t keep up, while also ensuring that patients receive timely access to drugs that can often mean the difference between recovery and regression.

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From Workflow to Control Stack

Here’s what sets Mandolin apart: they’re not just reducing friction - they’re replacing fragility. Every healthcare admin process lives in a minefield of errors: missed faxes, incorrect forms, outdated benefit data. Mandolin’s AI architecture doesn’t just automate - it orchestrates, adapts, and learns across systems that were never built to talk to each other.

This is the key insight for founders working in heavily regulated or legacy-dependent verticals: the real moat isn’t speed - it’s reliability at scale. Mandolin’s platform becomes a control layer that absorbs operational chaos and outputs stability. If you’re building in a space where workflows fail silently and stakes are life-or-death, your product must own the failure paths, not just the happy ones.

Founders take note: Winning platforms in healthcare don’t just digitize - they become the nervous system. And that’s what makes Mandolin not just another automation tool, but a systems integrator for the future of clinical operations.

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Backed by Investors Who Understand Systems Innovation

Mandolin’s backers are no strangers to market-shifting platforms. Greylock Partners, known for early bets on Airbnb and LinkedIn, bring deep operational expertise to scaling SaaS across complex industries. SignalFire, with its AI-native investment thesis, recognized the importance of Mandolin’s self-learning capabilities. The presence of Maverick Capital and SV Angel further signals confidence in Mandolin’s potential to dominate the healthcare automation vertical.

With this Series A, Mandolin is expected to grow its product engineering, clinical partnerships, and payer integrations. The team also plans to scale support across infusion centers, specialty pharmacies, and decentralized clinical networks.

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Why the Specialty Drug Automation Market Is Just Getting Started

Specialty drug logistics is a $500B+ global industry, and yet over 65% of clinics in the U.S. still rely on phone, fax, and spreadsheets to coordinate care. This inefficiency contributes to treatment delays averaging 5–10 days, with direct consequences for patient outcomes.

AI-first platforms like Mandolin are poised to change this. According to a 2024 Deloitte survey, AI-driven automation in healthcare is expected to cut administrative costs by up to 30% over the next five years. And as payers push for greater transparency and digital traceability, platforms that offer real-time data, audit trails, and workflow intelligence will increasingly become table stakes.

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What’s Next for Mandolin

As the company scales, Mandolin will focus on deepening interoperability with EHRs, payers, and pharmacy systems. This means not only automating the current steps but introducing predictive logic - flagging when claims might be denied or preemptively submitting authorizations when a treatment plan is initiated.

With its new funding, Mandolin is uniquely positioned to become the de facto operating system for specialty drug logistics - a role with both enormous impact and defensibility.