Last Updated: 8 June 2026
Stepful, a startup that trains workers for healthcare careers using an AI-powered platform, has closed a $55 million Series C funding round. The company was co-founded by Carl Madi, Tressia Hobeika, and Edoardo Serra, and its pitch to health systems is straightforward: take on the training function entirely, so hospitals and clinics do not have to rely on a broken pipeline of legacy schools and expensive temporary staffing.
The numbers behind the shortage are striking. Between 2022 and 2025, the supply of registered nurses in the United States grew by just 1%, while demand rose by 3%, leaving a deficit of roughly 295,800 nurses across the country. The problem goes beyond nursing. According to the AHA's 2025 Workforce Scan, burnout and turnover fell for the first time since the pandemic, but shortages continue, and the ratio of workers to senior citizens is expected to drop from four to 2.9 within five years. Traditional trade schools, with their enrollment caps and slow manual processes, are not equipped to close that gap.
Oak HC/FT led the Series C, as it did Stepful's $31.5 million Series B in late 2024. Foresite Capital, Hearst Ventures, and the Citi Impact Fund joined as new investors. Returning backers include SemperVirens, Y Combinator, Intermountain Health, and the ECMC Education Impact Fund.
American health systems currently spend $97 billion a year on contract staffing. That figure is a direct consequence of a training pipeline that has never been built to scale. Schools take too long. Credentialing processes are slow. Hospitals fill gaps with temporary workers, which is expensive and does not build long-term capacity.
Stepful positions itself as an answer to that structural problem. The company embeds its platform inside health systems rather than operating as a standalone school. It delivers what it calls a "school-as-a-service" model, replacing paper-heavy, manual training workflows with an AI-powered system that covers instruction, clinical simulation, assessment, and workforce planning. Student data and clinical outcomes feed back into the platform continuously, making the system more precise over time.
"Stepful is the only company we have seen that combines online education with a sophisticated AI engine to solve the talent supply problem at scale. This team has sustained an extraordinary pace of growth, with 35+ major healthcare system clients, including Mount Sinai, Ochsner, and Providence. Our continued investment reflects our conviction in both the leadership and the platform they've built."
Vig Chandramouli, Partner at Oak HC/FT
The new capital will go toward three priorities: growing the company's health system partnerships, launching advanced degree programs, and building out its AI capabilities further. In terms of academic programs, Stepful is moving into nursing, respiratory therapy, and imaging, which represent a step up from the allied health certifications that have been its core business.
The company's employer-sponsored model is central to how it attracts students. Workers can pursue certifications without taking on debt and without leaving their jobs to attend in-person classes. That matters especially for people in lower-income brackets who cannot afford to stop working while they retrain. Stepful already serves more than 35 major healthcare system clients and plans to expand that number with the new funding.
"Stepful is not just a training platform - we are the foundational infrastructure for the future of the healthcare workforce. This capital allows us to expand our partnerships with hospitals and health systems, launch advanced degree programs in nursing, respiratory therapy, and imaging, and accelerate our AI capabilities."
Carl Madi, CEO and Co-Founder of Stepful
Carl Madi, Tressia Hobeika, and Edoardo Serra founded Stepful on the observation that healthcare education was too expensive, too slow, and out of reach for too many people. The company started with allied health programs, training medical assistants, pharmacy technicians, dental assistants, and patient care technicians. It has since added licensed practical nursing and surgical tech programs.
The platform combines live, instructor-led class sessions with one-on-one coaching and AI-driven feedback tools that track how individual students are progressing. If a student starts to fall behind, the system flags it. This model is built around working adults, people who cannot leave their jobs, move to a campus, or take on years of student debt. The programs are designed to fit around existing work schedules, with most coursework done online.
Since founding, Stepful has graduated more than 32,000 healthcare workers who were job-ready upon completion.
Oak HC/FT is a venture and growth equity firm that focuses on healthcare and financial technology. It manages more than $7 billion in assets across a portfolio of over 100 companies, and has now led Stepful's last two funding rounds. The firm's repeated backing is a sign of sustained confidence in both the team and the business model.
Among the new investors, Foresite Capital focuses on life sciences and healthcare, while the Citi Impact Fund targets companies with measurable social outcomes. Hearst Ventures is the investment arm of the media and information company Hearst. Together with returning backers Y Combinator, SemperVirens, Intermountain Health, and the ECMC Education Impact Fund, the investor group spans healthcare venture capital, institutional finance, and education-focused impact investing.
The Series C follows Stepful's $31.5 million Series B, which closed in November 2024.
