From the Founder | Julien Nakache, Founder of Granted

About the article: Meet Julien Nakache - CEO & Founder of Granted, the first AI-powered healthcare service that saves people time, money, and stress on health insurance and medical bills. Read the full article to learn about Julien’s early involvement in startups, passion for electronic music, and idea for Granted.

Granted

Locations: New York City

Company Size: 11 - 50 people

Markets: Healthcare, Artificial Intelligence, Finance Technology, Mobile Application

A Trip to Silicon Valley

Julien embarked on an extraordinary journey that shaped his entrepreneurial spirit at a young age. While attending university at HEC Paris, he spearheaded a project promoting the French education system worldwide, traveling to over 20 countries. Through this journey, he first encountered Silicon Valley, where he met with Partech, a leading French VC firm.

Upon returning to Paris, Julien worked as a venture investor for a year. During this time, he helped establish an exchange program between HEC Paris and Stanford University, becoming part of the inaugural student cohort. Immersed in technology courses, including computer science and AI, this experience ignited his passion for entrepreneurship, compelling him to return to the heart of the tech industry to pursue his dreams.

Julien’s Career Journey: Learning the Startup Ecosystem and Early Days at Oscar Health

“I learned from my first startup experience that I would never again join a company I wasn’t passionate about.” - Julien

Julien’s first role at a meal kit startup taught him the importance of being passionate about the problem one aims to solve, especially in a small team. This realization led him to join Oscar Health, the first tech-focused health insurance company, as an early employee:

• He was one of the first 10 engineers.

• He spent eight years with the company, witnessing its growth through its IPO.

• While others gravitated toward management roles, Julien chose to remain on the technical track, focusing on building products.

  In 2014, recognizing the rising importance of React, he led its migration at Oscar Health and championed the adoption of React Native, then a new technology. Julien also played a pivotal role in advancing Oscar's telemedicine platform, a critical component of their services today.

Frustration with the Medical System

Julien's journey toward founding Granted began with a personal struggle in navigating the complex U.S. healthcare system. Despite his expertise in the industry and securing pre-approval, Julien received a bill for $160,000 for a surgery. It took over 40 hours of calls across several months to resolve the billing issue. This experience fueled his determination to address systemic issues in health insurance and medical billing.

The start of Granted and Fundraising

Initially, Julien struggled to see how to create an affordable product that could truly impact millions. However, around the time that ChatGPT launched and large language models (LLMs) reached an inflection point, he met Scott Birnbaum, founder of Red Sea Ventures, who was also passionate about this consumer problem. Over the course of 5 months, Julien delved into the market, regulatory landscape, and LLMs, creating one of the first LLM-based phone assistants.

With a solid conviction in his business and technology, Julien crafted a fundraising deck and successfully closed a pre-seed round in just three weeks. The round received backing from founders and investors at Hugging Face, Oscar Health, TrueBill, RRE Ventures, Red Sea Ventures, and others, aided by Julien’s background and industry connections.

The Product: How does Granted Work

Driven by a vision of empowering patients with greater transparency and the tools to easily manage their healthcare spends, Julien conceptualized Granted, a free, all-in-one app for managing health benefits and billing issues. Granted uses technology and new regulations to streamline the complex and often overwhelming world of medical billing and health insurance benefits, and assist consumers throughout their entire healthcare journey as they switch jobs, choose plans, shop for care, and manage and pay medical bills.

Hybrid Work as a Catalyst to Finding the Best Talent

Julien embraces a hybrid work model, with some roles being fully remote and others based in their NYC headquarters. His experience with remote work began in 2017 at Oscar, and he appreciates the flexibility it offers and the distraction-free environment for deep technical work. New employees are often impressed by Granted's thorough documentation in Notion, which covers their tech stack and operational processes—highlighting a commitment to transparency and efficiency.

With 25 full-time employees, Granted is experiencing rapid growth, expanding both at their NYC headquarters and across their remote team in the US. The company has secured significant funding from top investors, enabling them to build an exceptional team of engineers and operators.

Explore the company and open roles at Granted

Learn more about Granted

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