Elation Health, a San Francisco company that sells electronic health record and billing software to primary care practices, announced on June 2, 2026 that it had acquired Aster, a startup that built an AI-native electronic health record for women's health. The companies did not disclose the price or other terms.
Aster's co-founders, sisters Fifi Kara and Dr. Lailah Kara-Newton, and its chief technology officer, Nacho Vazquez, are joining Elation. The team built Atlas, a voice agent that handles front-office work for medical practices.
Aster's women's health EHR will not continue as a standalone product, FemTech Insider reported. Its AI and agent technology is being folded into Elation's platform. The deal is Elation's second acquisition, after it bought Lightning MD in 2023. Elation presented the purchase as a way to speed up its work on AI agents for primary care rather than as a move into a separate women's health business.
What Aster built
Aster was founded in 2023. It combined patient and practice management tools with voice AI in a single record system aimed at women's health providers, AfroTech reported. Its Atlas voice agent was designed to take over routine front-office tasks for practices.
The company has reported a 50% reduction in charting time and more than 9,500 automated intake forms, AfroTech reported. Those numbers come from the company and were not independently verified.
The startup began with a personal experience. Dr. Kara-Newton had undiagnosed preeclampsia during her first pregnancy, which led to an emergency Caesarean section and a stay in neonatal intensive care for her son. The sisters set out to build software that could help clinicians catch such problems.
“The Aster team impressed us with their vision and creative inventions to support independent practices.”
Why Elation is buying
Elation says it is building what it calls the first agentic operating system for primary care: software that does work on behalf of clinicians rather than only assisting them. It said Aster brings expertise in autonomous AI agents that will speed that work up.
Kyna Fong, Elation's co-founder and chief executive, said that like Elation, Aster was founded by siblings with a personal mission to fix healthcare, and that it was clear early on the team would add to Elation's capabilities.
Fifi Kara said the founders had found they were aligned with Fong, Ashley Rogers and the rest of Elation's leadership on the idea that clinicians deserve software that brings joy back to their practice, and that the combined company could take that to millions of primary care patients.
The founders and the funding
Fifi Kara is a two-time founder, a Y Combinator alum and a Fulbright Scholar. Before Aster she led design for Meta's Health and Fitness organisation. Dr. Kara-Newton earned her medical degree from Barts and The London School of Medicine and practised medicine, including obstetrics and gynaecology, for more than seven years. She has published research with the World Health Organization and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Vazquez designed Aster's full technology stack and its AI features.
Aster raised $2.8 million from Zeal Capital Partners, Cornerstone Ventures, Octopus Ventures and others, according to Elation's announcement. The companies did not say how the investors fared in the sale. AfroTech, which covered the deal as the sale of a Black women-founded health tech startup, also did not report terms.
What happens to customers
Elation says its software is used by more than 50,000 clinical users and covers 24 million patients, and it has been ranked Best in KLAS for small-practice ambulatory EHR. Aster's technology will reach that user base through Elation's platform rather than as a separate women's health product.
Neither company said what would happen to practices that used Aster's standalone EHR or how long it would remain available. Elation said it plans to offer the combined capabilities to primary care practices across the United States.
Elation's customers include independent practices, and Fong pointed to Aster's work for that group as one reason for the deal. Elation's own website says it earned strong 2026 KLAS marks for loyalty, culture and operations. The company did not say how many Aster employees joined in total, or whether the Aster name would be kept for any product.
