- Investments
- 08 May 2025
- 2 min read
- Words: Northzone
Our investment in Clarium: a new era for healthcare supply chains
Clarium and the Future of Healthcare Supply Chains
In the chaotic spiderweb of modern healthcare, one of the most critical elements has long remained overlooked and under-optimized: the supply chain. Despite its essential role in making sure that hospitals have the equipment and materials they need to care for patients, the infrastructure behind it has lagged behind. It’s fragmented, reactive, and prone to failure. Nearly $30 billion of the $140 billion spent by U.S. health systems on medical supplies each year is overspend. It’s more than inefficiency; it’s money that could have been invested in patient care, staff, or innovation.
Steve Liou, founder and CEO of Clarium, saw the problem from the inside out. With a career spanning healthcare investment banking, VC, and portfolio manager positions at Point72, Citadel, and Millennium, Steve understood not only the scale of the problem, but what it would take to fix it. He wanted to build a future where hospitals could manage their supply chains with the same intelligence and precision we now expect from other critical systems.
That vision became Clarium.
At the heart of Clarium’s offering is Astra OS, the first resiliency platform for healthcare supply chains. By unifying data from across providers, manufacturers, and distributors—and layering in AI—Astra OS helps health systems anticipate disruptions and implement substitutions before patient care is impacted. The results are already speaking for themselves: 50% faster disruption resolution, 88% substitute approval rates, and millions in annual savings for major health systems.
The need for this kind of solution is only growing. In 2024, when Hurricane Helene wiped out a facility producing 70% of the U.S. saline supply, many hospitals faced critical shortages of IV bags. Clarium’s platform flagged the disruption early and recommended vetted alternative suppliers, helping its customers stay ahead of the crisis. In a world where climate change, global consolidation, and, increasingly, tariffs are making supply chains more vulnerable than ever, this kind of foresight isn’t just nice to have; it’s essential.
The core issue is fragmentation. Today’s healthcare supply chain data lives in an alphabet soup of ERPs, EHRs, WMS, RCMs, and CRMs that are siloed from each other. Most tools on the market offer singular solutions—patches for specific pain points. Clarium, by contrast, is building a holistic operating system for the entire supply chain. It’s not just about reducing costs; it’s about rethinking the infrastructure of healthcare delivery.
Since its seed round in 2024, Clarium has doubled its team, recruited top talent, and partnered with some of the most respected names in healthcare—Cleveland Clinic, Kaiser Permanente, St. Luke’s, and Sutter Health, among others. Today, we’re thrilled to lead Clarium’s $27 million Series A alongside General Catalyst, with participation from AlleyCorp, Kaiser Permanente Ventures, TMC Ventures, and 1984 Ventures.
As our partner Molly Alter puts it:
“Despite many recent advancements in healthcare technology, hospital procurement processes have largely remained stuck in the 20th century. While a number of point solutions exist, Clarium is the first comprehensive, end-to-end platform for managing the hospital supply chain. Clarium possesses the technology and vision to enable end-to-end supply chain management for every one of the 5,000 hospitals nationwide.”
This is just the beginning. With Clarium, a smarter, more connected era for healthcare operations isn’t a distant dream—it’s already underway. We’re proud to welcome Steve and the Clarium team to the portfolio.