Last year, Chris Heckler was nearing the end of a five-year non-compete agreement after selling his previous company, a healthcare startup. He found himself doing angel investing but felt he was too young to retire and wanted to get back into building a company. Around the same time, Joseph Akintolayo had just sold his fintech company and was also bound by a non-compete, though he was brainstorming ideas for a new venture. The two were already acquainted, as Akintolayo had previously served as an advisor on one of Heckler’s projects.
During this period of downtime, they decided to join forces. Heckler brought his industry connections, while Akintolayo contributed his expertise in AI and supply chains. Together, they aimed to build something new. The result was SpendRule, an AI-powered platform launched last summer to help healthcare systems track their spending. The company emerged from stealth on Tuesday with $2 million in funding. The round was led by Abundant Venture Partners, with participation from MemorialCare Innovation Fund and Zeal Capital Partners.
Currently, health systems use a three-way match for items with barcodes, connecting a purchase to an invoice. However, many purchases and contracts—such as those for maintenance, janitorial services, translation, or laundry—lack barcodes or easily identifiable receipts. These types of purchases are often tricky and complex to manage, making overspending a common issue.
SpendRule ensures hospitals pay only what was negotiated in their contracts. The technology integrates with a hospital’s existing enterprise resource planning software, contract management systems, and accounts payable workflows. It pulls information from contracts, invoices, internal databases, and vendor data to validate invoices before payment is released. The platform flags discrepancies and instructs teams when to pay and when not to.
Typically, hospitals hire an auditor every two years to perform this function or must manually review each invoice. It was a tedious task ripe for automation in the current wave of AI. Already, major health systems like Kettering Health, MemorialCare, and MUSC Health are using the platform.
Heckler and Akintolayo started the company only last summer but managed to close their funding round by Halloween, attributing the swift process largely to Heckler’s industry connections. The new capital will be used for hiring and further development of the company’s AI infrastructure.
SpendRule considers existing invoice auditors, such as SpendMend and GHX, as its competition. A key differentiator, however, is SpendRule’s focus on purchase services—the types of items hospitals buy that do not have barcodes. The company’s vision is to build more resilient hospital systems by protecting their bottom line through connecting data and enabling better financial decisions.