A London-based startup founded by a former Palantir healthcare executive has raised £9.7 million in a funding round led by Atomico, the European venture capital firm, with XYZ Venture Capital and Firstminute Capital also participating. The company, Frontier Health, has now raised £11.9 million in total since its founding in 2024.
The startup was founded by Rachel Finegold, who previously worked as Palantir’s healthcare lead across 40 NHS hospitals during the Covid-19 pandemic. That experience, she says, exposed her to a structural problem the NHS has never fully solved: there simply are not enough administrators to keep patients moving through the system.
“There physically weren’t enough administrators to support this integral machinery that needs to happen to keep patients moving through the system and to get patients their care,” Finegold told The Times. The company’s answer is an AI agent designed to work alongside NHS administrative staff, not replace them.
What Juno actually does
Frontier Health’s core product is an AI agent called Juno. It works with existing NHS administrative teams to handle the kind of routine tasks that pile up and slow everything else down. Specifically, Juno can:
- Book and manage patient appointments
- Help staff work through complex NHS systems
- Identify risks in patient pathways
- Keep patients moving safely through their care journey
Critically, Juno is designed to know its own limits. When it encounters something it cannot confidently handle, it flags the case to a human. That guardrail matters in a healthcare setting, where mistakes have real consequences. One current client listed on the company’s website is East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust.
Why the NHS admin problem is so serious
The NHS administrative burden is not just an efficiency issue. It directly affects patient outcomes. When appointments are not booked, follow-ups are missed, or patients get stuck at handover points between departments, care suffers. Frontier Health points to projections showing global healthcare systems could face a shortfall of 10 million workers by 2030, and argues that reducing the administrative load is one of the most practical ways to close that gap.
The problem has been well-documented for years. NHS trusts have tried various software solutions with mixed results, and the pressure on frontline and administrative staff has only grown since the pandemic. AI agents that handle specific, well-defined tasks are increasingly being explored as a practical option, rather than broader automation platforms that often require significant integration work.
Palantir’s complicated NHS relationship
Frontier Health’s origins at Palantir give Finegold deep NHS knowledge, but Palantir itself is a controversial presence in British healthcare. More than 50 percent of NHS trusts in England currently use Palantir software to help manage waiting lists. However, the British Medical Association has publicly called for the NHS to end its relationship with the company, citing Palantir’s contracts with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Frontier Health is a separate company with no operational ties to Palantir, but the connection is worth noting as the NHS continues to weigh up its relationships with US-based technology providers.
What the funding will be used for
Frontier Health plans to use the new capital to expand Juno’s presence across more NHS trusts and grow its team, which currently has 12 people. Atomico summed up its investment rationale simply: “As healthcare systems face growing demand and limited resources, we believe supportive AI can become critical infrastructure, augmenting frontline teams and improving care delivery.”
The bet is that an AI tool built specifically for NHS workflows, by someone who spent years inside those workflows, has a better shot at actual adoption than generic enterprise software. Whether NHS trusts agree will become clear as Frontier Health pushes for wider contracts.