Leona Health Announces its Launch to Scale Human Connection in Healthcare

Leona Health, the AI-powered assistant built for doctors to securely and intelligently manage patient care through WhatsApp, led by Caroline Merin, Tom Chokel, and Arela Solis, announced its launch with backing from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), General Catalyst, Accel, and seasoned tech luminaries, including David Vélez, co-founder and CEO of Nubank, Simón Borrero, co-founder and CEO of Rappi, and Kate Ryder, founder and CEO of Maven Clinic. 

In Latin America, WhatsApp is the operating system of daily life, from booking appointments to running small businesses, and healthcare is no exception. Most doctors are independent practitioners, deeply embedded in long-term patient relationships, in a system where private insurance is rare, and care is often paid out of pocket.

But that closeness comes at a cost. Doctors receive over 100 WhatsApp messages a day on personal phones, mixing medical, administrative, and personal chats in a single inbox. With patients expecting instant replies, doctors are effectively always on call, overwhelmed, and unable to disconnect.

A personal experience with a pediatrician, scrambling through old WhatsApp messages to find medication details because records lived on paper, revealed something bigger. This wasn’t just inefficiency; it was the invisible infrastructure of care in Latin America: powered by human connection, but unsupported by technology, and quietly breaking the doctors holding it together.

Leona Health is launching to help doctors scale human connection in healthcare, not replace it. Leona is the world’s first AI co-pilot for doctors built directly on WhatsApp.

Powered by recent advances in AI, Leona integrates seamlessly into existing workflows, turning chaotic WhatsApp inboxes into a secure, intelligent workspace. Built by an SF-based team led by Tom Chokel (former CTO of Modern Fertility), Leona separates personal and professional messages, organizes conversations, suggests responses, and enables staff triage, with AI scheduling and full automation of non-clinical tasks coming soon.

Doctors save up to three hours a day on admin work, while patients get faster, more accurate responses using the app they already trust. Starting in Latin America, where no legacy healthcare OS exists, Leona is building for the world, grounded in a simple belief: better care starts with better connection.

In Spanish, leona means lioness, nurturing, collaborative, strategic, and fierce. Lionesses are the backbone of the pride, caring for the group while driving its survival.

That idea defines Leona: a new operating system for doctors that supports compassionate patient care while enabling strategic, sustainable practice growth. The goal is to meet doctors and patients where they already are, scaling the humanity of medicine rather than replacing it.

Enduring systems are built not only on strong ideas but on strong cultures. As Leona expands beyond its first 14 countries, it aims to prove that ambition and performance can coexist with kindness, integrity, and collaboration. Healthcare can be seamless, human, and obvious, powered by tools that work quietly in the background, and by leadership that is both nurturing and fiercely strategic.