# SimCare

Aiolum story: https://aiolum.com/story/simcare/ · added 2026-11-05 · updated 2026-11-05

**In short.** SimCare (AI simulated clients for counselor and clinical training, USA): US$5K a month (MRR), August 2024. Evidence grade D: reported, not verified. Team: 2 founders when they reported the US$5K MRR in August 2024; 7 people on the Y Combinator page in November 2026. Launched August 2024; still running.

AI simulated clients for counselor and clinical training · USA · AI-native · team of 2 to 10 · still running · group: Learning and study

- Outcome: US$5K a month (MRR), August 2024 (evidence grade of the headline number: D; headline in US dollars: 60000)
- Launch: August 2024; months from launch to the outcome: 1
- Team: 2 founders when they reported the US$5K MRR in August 2024; 7 people on the Y Combinator page in November 2026
- Outside funding: Y Combinator, Summer 2024 batch (amount not stated in the sources read)
- Main factor: The founders built a practice tool for a test that one of them had failed, then sold the same idea to schools
- Meters, 1 to 4: evidence strength 1, copyable pattern 2, capital needed 2
- Tags: AI-native, Small team, Funded, Running, B2B, Education

Links:

- Visit simcare.ai: https://simcare.ai/

**The product.** A web platform where counseling, social work, psychology, medical and nursing students hold practice sessions by voice with AI clients: fictional patients with a life story and a problem, more than 500 of them, designed by counselors. After each session the student gets automatic feedback on tone, empathy, questions and clinical skills, and the instructor sees the scores. A second product, FieldX, manages field placements, hours and signatures, and the company says it is free for life.

**Why it worked.** Schools train these conversations with role-play between students or with paid actors, which is slow and hard to grade. The founders wrote that practice with friends or family is not legal in counseling training without supervision. An AI client is available at any hour, behaves the same for every student, and grades the session automatically, so a program can give each student many more practice sessions.

Evidence grades: A = disclosed by a public company, a filing or a payment processor, or verified by one; B = two or more independent reports agree, or a journalist confirmed it; C = a founder claim that no one else verified; D = reported, not verified: one founder claim or a third-party estimate with no second source; E = no revenue figure found, so the headline is a non-money fact and the other facts carry their own grades; calc = computed on this page from graded facts.

## Summary

SimCare sells simulated patients (in counseling, "clients"): characters who are not real people and who speak with a student so that the student can practice an interview before meeting real patients. SimCare's characters are run by a large language model (LLM), a program that writes the next words of a conversation, and they appear as talking avatars, animated figures with a voice. The terms of service say the AI "patients" are fictitious characters generated by software, not real people. After each session the student gets a score and comments; the company calls this feedback.

Vrishank Saini (CEO) and Tiko Bdoyan (CTO; the launch posts call him Tigran) met at the University of Chicago. In their Y Combinator launch post of 31 August 2024 they wrote that Saini failed a clinical communications test and could not pay a US$9,000 tutor, so they built an AI coach, and that in 3 weeks the tool reached US$5K MRR and 2,500 users. MRR, monthly recurring revenue, is the amount that subscribers pay each month. The company, first called Soma Lab, joined Y Combinator in the Summer 2024 batch, changed its name to SimCare, and moved its sales to schools: in November 2024 the founders wrote that they had closed 30 pilots in 3 weeks.

In November 2026 the home page says that more than 15,000 students have joined, and the Y Combinator page lists 7 people in New York. The only money figure is the founders' own sentence from 2024, repeated in two posts, so the headline is grade D: reported, not verified. The page also shows earlier education and medical-software companies that failed.

## Pricing

SimCare prices in November 2026: no price list is published; the home page and the CEO's blog describe how institutions pay (grade C)

| Plan | Per month, billed yearly (US$) | Per month, billed monthly (US$) | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simulations, institutional license |  |  | price on request after a demo; paid by the institution, a student lab fee or a grant |
| FieldX, field-experience management | 0 | 0 | free for life, per the CEO's blog post of February 2026 |

The simulations are sold to institutions after a demo. The home page says some institutions pay directly, others pass the cost to students as a lab fee or tech fee, and others use grants such as Title V or HRSA. FieldX, the field-experience tool, is free; the CEO wrote that the simulations business pays for it. The price of the 2024 student tool was not found.

## How much revenue does SimCare make? The numbers, graded

A two-founder practice tool that the founders said reached US$5K MRR in 3 weeks, before it became a school platform with 7 people

| Fact | Value | Grade | Note | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly recurring revenue 3 weeks after the first tool launched | US$5,000 (founders: "$5k MRR") | D | Founders' YC launch post of 31 August 2024, repeated in the launch post of 16 November 2024. The posts do not give the date of the tool's launch, only that the figure came 3 weeks after it, before the first post. | [1, 2] |
| Users at the same time | 2,500 (founders: "2.5k users") | D | Same sentence in both launch posts. | [1, 2] |
| Run rate from the MRR figure | US$60,000 a year | calc | Calculated: US$5,000 times 12. This is the number used for sorting; it is not a figure the founders gave. | [1] |
| Time from tool launch to the figure | 3 weeks, about 0.7 months (shown as 1) | calc | Calculated: 21 days divided by 30.44 days a month. | [1] |
| Team at the MRR figure | 2 founders | C | Both launch posts open "we're Vrishank and Tigran, the team behind" the company. | [1, 2] |
| Team in November 2026 | 7 people, New York City; hiring a founding engineer | C | Y Combinator company page, read 5 November 2026: "SimCare has 7 employees based in New York City". | [3] |
| Founders | Vrishank Saini (Founder/CEO), Tiko Bdoyan (Founder/CTO) | C | Y Combinator company page. The launch posts write "Tigran" for the CTO. | [3, 1] |
| Funding | Y Combinator, Summer 2024 batch | C | Y Combinator company page. No round size was found in the sources read. | [3] |
| Earlier name | Soma Lab (somalab.ai) | C | The November 2024 launch post: SimCare AI "(prev. 'Soma Lab')". | [2] |
| Pilots with institutions, November 2024 | 30 pilots in 3 weeks | D | Founders' launch post of 16 November 2024; named schools include the University of Pennsylvania, Virginia Tech and the University of Sydney. Paid or free pilots is not stated. | [2] |
| Students who joined, November 2026 | more than 15,000 | C | Home page counter, "15k+ students joined". A company claim, not audited. | [4] |
| AI clients in the library | more than 500, "counselor-designed" | C | Home page and FAQ: clients from children to older adults, problems from school refusal to addiction. | [4] |
| Clients are fictional | "fictitious characters generated by software. They are not real people" | C | Terms and conditions, section 4.1 "Simulation Only". The terms also say the responses are not medical, psychological or clinical advice. | [5] |
| AI models | not named; the privacy policy lists "LLM API providers" among its vendors | C | No source read names the model or the voice and avatar vendors. | [6] |
| Pricing | no public price list; FieldX free | C | Home page FAQ on billing; CEO's blog post of 18 February 2026 on FieldX. | [4, 7] |

How to read this table: a grade D value is a single founder statement that no one else has checked. A grade C value comes from the company's own pages or from Y Combinator's directory. A "calc" value was computed on this page. No value is grade A or B.

## When did SimCare launch, and how did it grow? Timeline

From a test that one founder failed to a platform for counseling programs, in about two years. Each entry carries its grade.

- **Before August 2024** (grade D [1]): Saini fails a clinical communications test. The two founders build an AI communications coach; the founders wrote that it reached US$5K MRR and 2,500 users in 3 weeks.
- **Summer 2024** (grade C [3]): Soma Lab is in the Y Combinator Summer 2024 batch.
- **31 August 2024** (grade C [1]): Launch post on Y Combinator: "Soma Lab, Scaling clinical training with AI", for medical schools and hospitals.
- **16 November 2024** (grade D [2]): Second launch post under the new name SimCare AI: AI patients for therapy, social work and medical programs, and for teletherapy companies that screen job applicants. The founders wrote that they closed 30 pilots in 3 weeks.
- **18 February 2026** (grade C [7]): The CEO announces that FieldX, a tool for field placements and hours built with a university counseling program, is free for life and paid for by the simulations business.
- **23 March 2026** (grade C [8]): The Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES) becomes an advisory partner of FieldX.
- **November 2026** (grade C [4, 3]): Home page: more than 500 AI clients, "moving avatars", more than 15,000 students. Y Combinator lists 7 people.

## Why did SimCare work?

### A founder's own failed test

The founders wrote that Saini failed a clinical communications test and could not pay a US$9,000 tutor. The first product was the practice coach he needed, sold to students like him. That gave quick proof that students would use it before the company sold to schools.

### From students to institutions

After Y Combinator the buyer changed from the student to the program. A school pays once for a whole class, or passes the cost to students as a lab fee, and the product fits a requirement that programs already have: competency-based accreditation such as CACREP for counseling.

### Automatic grading

Role-play and actors need faculty time to watch and grade. SimCare scores every session itself, so an instructor can assign more practice without more grading work.

### A free tool that brings buyers

FieldX manages placements, hours and signatures for counseling programs at no cost. The CEO wrote that many programs meet SimCare through FieldX and later buy the simulations.

## How it was built

Few technical details are public. These come from the company's own pages and the founders' launch posts.

- Conversations are run by large language models; the privacy policy lists "LLM API providers" among its vendors, without names.
- Students speak by voice with animated avatars; the home page announces "moving avatars" in 2026.
- Feedback after each session covers tone, empathy, communication, nonverbal cues, diagnostic accuracy and clinical skills, and the platform keeps a video, a transcript and a skills assessment.
- A course catalog maps prebuilt courses to CACREP standards; instructors add a course and share a class code, and the platform integrates with learning management systems.
- The CTO was a machine learning researcher in a bioinformatics lab, according to the launch posts.

Sources: [4, 6, 10, 1]

## Who tried this before SimCare, and why did they fail?

Four companies in our database of failed startups sold software or courses for training and education and failed. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.

The failed startups come from our database of dead startups, retold here in our own words; Its entries are AI-assisted summaries of public sources, so they carry no evidence grade.

### Weidong Cloud (2012 to 2024; funding US$300M; cause: No Market Need)

- Promise: A software platform for Chinese hospitals that included medical education and clinical decision support.
- Why it died: It tried to sell everything to everyone and hospitals did not adopt it.
- Record: 

### Grockit (2007 to 2015; funding US$44.4M; cause: Competition)

- Promise: Social, game-like test preparation for the SAT and GMAT.
- Why it died: Kaplan bought it in 2013, and the product faded inside the larger company.
- Record: 

### Virtually (2020 to 2023; funding US$2.5M; cause: Competition)

- Promise: Scheduling and analytics for online classes.
- Why it died: Zoom and the end of pandemic online teaching left it without a market.
- Record: 

### LearnUp (2011 to 2017; funding US$8.5M; cause: Competition)

- Promise: Custom training modules that matched job seekers with employers.
- Why it died: LinkedIn Learning and Coursera had more money, more content and larger networks.
- Record: 

## What changed

The four predecessors sold training content or classroom software in markets where a large company, a platform or a public institution decided what was used. Content was expensive to make and easy for bigger rivals to copy.

SimCare differs in two ways. The language model makes a new practice partner cheap: a counselor writes a client case and the model plays it for every student, so the cost of a session is a model call, not an actor's fee. And the product is tied to an accreditation need that programs must meet, which gives schools a budget line for it. The risk of a larger rival remains, as the predecessors show.

## Can one person copy SimCare now?

**Verdict: The method, yes. The YC path, not needed.**

A tool for a test that you yourself had to pass, sold first to other students and then to the schools that train them, is a method one person can repeat in another field. The language model does the role-play; the work is writing good cases and a fair scoring rubric with people from the field.

1. Find a skill that students must show in a live conversation and that schools train with role-play or actors.
2. Build a voice or text practice partner for that conversation with a language model, and score each session against the rubric that the exam uses.
3. Sell it to students first to prove use, then to programs, with a lab-fee option so the school does not need a new budget.
4. Give programs a free admin tool they need anyway, as FieldX does, so that they meet you before they buy.

**What is still open.** Other trades that train conversations: pharmacy counseling, veterinary client talks, police interviews, customer-service hiring tests, language exams with a speaking part.

## What could go wrong for SimCare?

- **What is not verified.** The only money figure, US$5K MRR and 2,500 users 3 weeks after the first tool launched, is one sentence by the founders in their Y Combinator launch post of 31 August 2024, repeated unchanged on 16 November 2024. No date for the tool's launch, no later revenue and no payment-processor data were found. A reader could look for a revenue figure in a later founder interview, a funding announcement or a university purchase record. The press article listed on the YC page is on a site that this pipeline does not fetch.
- **The team grew after the headline.** The figure comes from the time of 2 founders. In November 2026 the Y Combinator page lists 7 people and an open engineering role. The company is backed by Y Combinator.
- **Fictional AI clients, not real people.** The home page and the YC page call the product "AI avatars". The terms of service say the AI patients are "fictitious characters generated by software" and "not real people", and the home page says the 500+ clients are "counselor-designed". No page read shows a real person being imitated. The terms also say the responses are not medical, psychological or clinical advice; the product trains students and makes no claim to treat patients.
- **Competition in simulation training.** SimCare's own blog names HAL Virtual Patient as another clinical simulation tool and describes research prototypes of voice-enabled LLM patients. It also cites studies in which virtual patient training did not do better than video role-play on one measure. Schools can also keep using actors and role-play, which SimCare replaces.
- **Dependence on model providers.** The privacy policy says the service uses "LLM API providers" without naming them. The quality and cost of every session depend on those providers' prices and rules, and on how well the model stays in character in sensitive scenarios such as crisis or addiction cases.
- **Counters and testimonials.** "15k+ students joined" and "500+ avatars" are the company's own counters. The home page quotes one professor by name and university; the earlier pilot list in the 2024 post did not say whether the pilots were paid.

## Sources

1. Y Combinator Launches, 31 August 2024: Soma Lab, Scaling clinical training with AI — https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/Ll2-soma-lab-scaling-clinical-training-with-ai (grade D). Read in full. Founders' own post. Source for the US$5K MRR, the 2,500 users, the founding story and the two-person team.
2. Y Combinator Launches, 16 November 2024: SimCare AI, Scaling Healthcare Training and Evaluation with AI Patients and Simulations — https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/MH0-simcare-ai-scaling-healthcare-training-and-evaluation-with-ai-patients-simulations (grade D). Read in full. Founders' own post. Source for the name change, the 30 pilots and the customer types; repeats the MRR sentence.
3. Y Combinator company page: SimCare — https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/simcare (grade C). Read the company data in the page, 5 November 2026. Source for the founders and titles, the batch, the team of 7 and the location.
4. SimCare home page — https://simcare.ai/ (grade C). Read in full, 5 November 2026. Source for the product, the 500+ clients, the 15k+ students counter and the billing FAQ.
5. SimCare terms and conditions — https://simcare.ai/terms-and-conditions (grade C). Read the section on the simulation (4.1). Source for the statement that the AI patients are fictitious.
6. SimCare privacy policy — https://simcare.ai/privacy-policy (grade C). Read the section on service providers. Source for the use of LLM API providers.
7. SimCare blog, 18 February 2026: FieldX is free. Here's why. (Vrishank Saini) — https://simcare.ai/blog/fieldx-is-free (grade C). Read in full. CEO's post. Source for FieldX, its free price and how programs find the simulations.
8. SimCare blog, 23 March 2026: ACES Partners with FieldX — https://simcare.ai/blog/aces-simcare (grade C). Read in full. Source for the ACES advisory partnership.
9. SimCare blog: What Is a Virtual Patient and How Does It Enhance Counseling Training? — https://simcare.ai/blog/virtual-patient-counseling-students (grade C). Read in full. Source for the competitor named (HAL Virtual Patient) and the limits of virtual patients.
10. SimCare course catalog page — https://simcare.ai/course-catalog (grade C). Read in full. Source for the prebuilt courses with CACREP mapping and class codes.
11. Database of failed startups, local export — /method/#dead (grade C). Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors.

Contact: aiolum@livyden.com. Run SimCare? Send corrections or a verified figure to aiolum@livyden.com (subject: Correction: SimCare).