Founders Everywhere: Ria Shah
Ria Shah is the co-founder and CPO of Handl Health, a platform transforming how health plans are built and managed.
Welcome to Founders Everywhere, where we highlight the incredible people behind the companies we’ve backed at Everywhere Ventures, a global pre-seed fund supported by a community of 500 founders and operators.
Nobody should put their financial future at risk trying to stay healthy, but for millions of Americans on employer-sponsored insurance, that’s exactly the challenge. Handl Health started out connecting consumers directly to healthcare price-transparency data, but quickly realized the best way to cut costs at scale was to focus on the employers, brokers, and carriers who actually design and manage health plans. That shift led to Handl giving employers everything they need to build better health plans and, more importantly, see results. On the ground, that means Handl gives those decision-makers the data and tools to build smarter benefits, track their impact, and reduce waste. For employees, that translates into guidance toward high-value providers and support navigating the healthcare system when they need it most.
Co-founders Ria Shah, Chief Product Officer, and Ahmed Marmoush, CEO, met while working together in healthcare analytics at Ernst & Young-Parthenon. Ria’s background is in data analytics and actuarial modeling, and her work at EY-P on value- and outcomes-based contracting showed her firsthand how broken healthcare’s information layer can be. Ahmed’s background in healthcare management consulting gave the pair a shared perspective on the challenges facing the system. Ria shares more about the company and vision for a more transparent healthcare system.
Why Handl Health and why now?
In 2022, Ahmed and I received an NIH SBIR grant to study how federal price-transparency laws were affecting employers and consumers. The data was difficult to access and nearly impossible to interpret—despite being called “machine-readable.” But we realized that, when combined with other datasets and the right technology, it could help make healthcare more affordable and accessible. Handl began as a passion project and grew into a company built to turn that insight into action.
What’s Handl Health’s North Star?
Our North Star is helping people get the right care at the right time for a price they can afford. We do that by helping employers build more personalized, cost-effective health plans around the real needs of their people. We believe access to essential care at a fair price should be a given—not a privilege.
What sets Handl Health apart?
Handl Health is an end-to-end health-plan design and execution platform built on healthcare data. While many companies stop at analytics, Handl helps employers, brokers, and carriers turn insights into action: from designing and implementing plans to managing benefits and measuring results. As healthcare reaches an inflection point, Handl is using AI and better data to make plan design faster and more precise, with tools like episode-of-care provider tiering and variable-copay plans that give employers new ways to lower costs and rethink health insurance.
Tell us about a recent milestone that Handl Health crushed.
We closed our Series A a few months ago with a diverse group of investors. It reflects growing demand for better tools to untangle employer-sponsored healthcare and help employers, brokers, and carriers create more meaningful health insurance for patients.
How has your background influenced you as a founder?
This mission is personal to me, especially for the people and families who need support the most and should not have to go broke trying to stay healthy. My parents emigrated from India to California and built their own business in the jewelry and watch industry. I grew up watching them take risks, work with purpose, and always have another project in motion. It was a busy but fulfilling environment, and it showed me early on what it means to build something from the ground up. At the same time I saw the barriers my family and community faced when navigating U.S. healthcare. I initially thought becoming a frontline caregiver was the only way to make a meaningful difference, but my work with healthcare data showed me another path.
Fun fact:
I go to a lot of concerts. Live music is one of the few places where I am perfectly happy to stand still, put everything else aside, and focus completely in the moment.
From the archives: Listen to Kate Lambridis with Scott Hartley on the Venture Everywhere podcast: Human-Driven Health. Now on Apple & Spotify. Check out all our past episodes here!
