The problem
Healthcare costs rise 8-10% a year, and companies offer 2-3x more point solutions than they did a decade ago.
Each one makes the program harder to run, and data needed to determine ROI is spread across plan documents, contracts, claims and vendor reports. Teams wait weeks for analysis and make million-dollar decisions with little more than spreadsheets.
Meanwhile, 86% of employees are confused about their benefits, and their questions land on HR, leaving little time for strategy.
Why now
Benefits teams don’t lack expertise. They lack leverage.
AI can now read contracts, plan documents and claims the way a trained expert does.
But in benefits, reading documents isn’t enough. AI has to understand the whole program across units and regions, do real benefits work like an expert would, keep track of decisions and deadlines, and be trusted with employees.
That requires purpose-built AI for benefits.
Our approach
Avante is enterprise AI built for benefits teams. It knows your program, it knows how the work gets done and what good looks like, and it knows the rules that keep your business and employees safe.
Ava gives teams answers they couldn’t get before, expert work in minutes and ongoing work kept on track. Carly gives every employee a personal benefits expert in 80+ languages.
Both work from the same understanding of your program, so what employees ask shapes what your team improves.
By the numbers
42 seconds
to answer strategic questions
97%
benefits inquiries resolved
40%
reduction in routine workload
3x
lower HR ticket volume
93%
employee satisfaction
Leadership
Rohan D'Souza
CEO, Co-founder
Rohan has spent his career building AI products that turn complex, fragmented healthcare data into actionable insights. Previously, he served as Chief Product and Technology Officer at Olive AI and as Founding Product Lead at KenSci, where he secured patents in responsible AI.
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Carly Eckert, MD, PhD
Co-founder
Carly is a physician, epidemiologist, and clinical informaticist focused on applying data science to improve healthcare outcomes. She previously held leadership roles at Olive AI and KenSci, bridging clinical medicine and complex technical systems. She holds an MD and a Master's in Epidemiology from the University of Washington.
Kabir Shahani
Executive Chairman, Co-founder
Kabir is a serial entrepreneur and company builder who founded Amperity, growing it into a $1 billion customer data platform, and Appature, acquired by IMS Health. He also leads Amp It Up Ventures, where he partners with founders pursuing large, underserved markets.
Mahesh Kumar
Chief of Staff
Mahesh brings expertise in healthcare data infrastructure, implementation strategy, and client delivery. His background spans Datavant and Clarify Health Solutions, where he developed a deep understanding of the complex data ecosystems underpinning modern benefits.
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Katie Bardaro
Head of Customer Experience
Katie brings over a decade of expertise in compensation data, labor economics, and analytics. She most recently served as Chief Customer Officer at Syndio and VP of Data Analytics and Lead Economist at PayScale, and was a frequent commentator for The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, and The New York Times.
Nick Cecil
Chief Technology Officer
Nick leads Avante's engineering and product organizations with deep expertise in cloud infrastructure, platform scalability, and building teams that ship exceptional products. He previously served as Director of Software Engineering at Salesforce, leading the Tableau Core Services group, and held engineering roles at Tableau, Yapta, and WildTangent.
Kevin Varadian
Chief Revenue Officer
Kevin leads Avante's go to market organization with established leadership in enterprise AI sales and AI strategy for the office of the CHRO. He previously served as Chief Revenue Officer at Hiredscore (acquired by Workday in 2023), Head of North American Sales at LinkedIn, and held senior leadership roles at WeWork and CoachHub.
Rebecca Scully
Head of Marketing
Rebecca leads Avante's marketing function with over a decade of experience building go-to-market strategy for AI and HR tech companies from the ground up. Most recently, she held marketing leadership roles at Syndio, Amperity, and Dato/Turi.
