Sunbound, an AI-powered revenue operating system for senior living providers, has raised $24 million in a Series A round led by TTV Capital. The funding brings its total to $36 million. Bling Capital, Fika Ventures, Live Oak Bank, and Ziegler Linkage Fund also took part. The company, based in Washington and Cleveland, will use the money to speed up growth and product development. Its platform automates admissions, private payments, revenue cycle management, and working capital operations. Sunbound says this helps care providers improve collections, streamline financial workflows, and focus on resident care.

Deep dive: practice financing. October 15, 2026 Practice financing is the money clinicians use to open, buy, equip and run a practice. That covers startup loans, working capital to cover slow insurance payments, acquisition loans, equipment financing and mortgages on the building. The dynamics of practice financing look very different among independent medical, dental, and veterinary clinics. Specialty Breakdown Medical groups have experienced the most consolidation. By 2024, the AMA estimated that only 42% of physicians worked in private practice (down from 60% in 2012). Other sources cite more extreme numbers - Avalere/ Physicians Advocacy Institute data indicates that by January 2026, 82% of U.S. physicians worked for a hospital or another corporate employer, including insurers and private equity. Fewer owners means fewer acquisition loans, so lenders serving medical groups lean toward working capital that covers reimbursement gaps, and equipment and real estate loans. Dentistry has consolidated far less. About 73% of dentists still own their practice according to the ADA. Slower buying keeps independent owners, and associates who want to become owners, in the market for loans. Veterinary medicine has more than 30,000 practices. Mars (Banfield, VCA, BluePearl) and private equity platforms have built large chains especially in specialty and emergency care, but AVMA data suggest about 65% of general practices are still independent. With 39% of veterinarians 55 or older, many independent practices will change hands in the next decade, and the buyers will need financing. Overall, FinMed Partners LLC estimate that physicians own about 90,000 practices, the dental market counts roughly 100,000 independent offices, and veterinary care has 19,000 independent general practices. Bank Lending Anchors the Market Banks still anchor the big, long-term loans. SBA 7(a) loans, up to $5 million with as little as 10% down, are the workhorse for acquisitions. Live Oak Bank, which started as a veterinary lender, competes with big national and super regional banks such as Bank of America Practice Solutions, Huntington, PNC and U.S. Bank. In May 2026 U.S. Bank launched a startup loan for dental and veterinary practices supported by more than 100 dedicated healthcare bankers. Healthcare drew roughly $3.2 billion in SBA approvals in fiscal 2024, about 9% of volume, by one lender's analysis (Crestmont Capital). Role of Fintechs Specialists compete on speed and industry knowledge. Provide, the lending fintech Fifth Third Bank bought in 2021, aims squarely at dentists and vets ("people keep caring for their teeth and their pets even when money gets tight"). Venture money is here too. Panacea Financial raised $62 million in a Series B round in 2025 and in June 2026 the American Association of Orthodontists endorsed it for member loans. Panacea lends through Primis Bank, which held $583 million of its loans at mid-year (includes some non-practice lending). The model is a classic fintech in front and bank charter behind. Lenders serve the consolidators too: Live Oak has a sponsor-finance team for dental roll-ups. Entry of Payments Companies Square, Stripe and Adyen process card payments, which gives them a live view of a merchant's sales that banks do not have unless they own a processor (U.S. Bank and JP Morgan Chase). Square underwrites on real-time transaction data, has originated more than $32 billion in loans since 2014, and averages a loan of nearly $10,000, and markets its payment and scheduling tools to dentists, optometrists and dermatologists. Stripe Capital looks at a business' payment volume and history on Stripe to make lending offers. Adyen Capital works through software platforms, offers $500 to $50,000 on terms up to nine months, and takes the credit risk itself. These loans are small and short, so they compete for working capital, not acquisitions or real estate. A flat fee can also add up to more than a bank rate when a practice repays quickly. The bigger point is who holds the customer. The company that processes a practice's payments sees its cash flow first and can make an offer before a banker knows the practice exists. Rise of Embedded Finance Access to capital to fund different financing needs is spreading to the practice management (PM) software used by medical groups, dental offices, and vet clinics. The payment companies mentioned previously are often embedded natively into PM systems, including lending options. Parafin, which mostly operates outside healthcare but does have Mindbody as a customer, underwrites on sales history and delivers offers inside software platforms. Weave, the communications and payments software vendor recently acquired by Francisco Partners, signed a multi-year deal with Stripe in 2023 to process payments for its thousands of U.S. healthcare practices and added Stripe Capital as an embedded financing option. Other Ecosystem Partners Distributors and software vendors are also becoming channels for practice loans. Henry Schein's medical finance arm offers working capital, equipment and real estate loans through third-party lenders, and Covetrus, the animal-health distributor and practice-software company, refers vet practices to partner lenders for equipment and project financing. The End Game As fintechs continue to pressure traditional lenders in the practice financing space, banks are already pushing back. The Chief Enterprise Payments Office for Huntington Bank has been very public in saying "We won't cede any ground" to fintechs, adding "there's a tremendous opportunity in embedding banking with payments." (American Banker) Expect bank investment in third-party technology, integration with software platforms, and addition of healthcare sales teams to ramp up in the next couple of years. But at the same time, the payments companies and other fintechs are not backing down and will be pushing harder than ever to win sticky relationships with platforms both in healthcare and other industries. For a practice owner, the first capital offer may now come from the payments or software vendor before a banker calls. The vendor already sees the practice's collections, so it can pre-approve without a loan application. For banks and specialty lenders the choice is to supply the capital behind these platforms, as Primis does for Panacea, or to compete with them for the customer. Small working-capital advances suit this model easily. Acquisition and real estate loans still call for bank underwriting. FinMed Partners LLC founded Panacea to build a financial platform designed specifically for doctors - from medical school through residency, practice ownership, and beyond. PNC Treasury Management helps simplify financial operations so healthcare providers can focus more time, capital and resources on delivering patient care. Epic MyChart, the dominant patient portal in hospitals, is planning its own native payments solution on Fiserv's platform Epic, the dominant health IT platform for mid-size and large healthcare organizations in the U.S., now has a growing dental footprint. FinMed Partners LLC has been developing solutions specifically for the healthcare industry for more than 30 years.

Community banks and credit unions earn recognition for putting AI to work on growth and member experience. October 8, 2026 Glia's 2026 Catalyst Awards spotlight four institutions using AI to deepen relationships, free up staff and compete with larger rivals Four community and regional financial institutions have been honored for turning artificial intelligence into measurable business results, from deposit growth and cross-sell gains to thousands of hours of reclaimed staff time. Banking AI provider Glia named Heartland Credit Union, Live Oak Bank, Thomaston Savings Bank and Alliant Credit Union as winners of its 2026 Catalyst Awards. The program recognizes institutions using AI to improve growth, operational efficiency and customer experience. Glia said the four were chosen from the more than 700 banks and credit unions it works with. For bank marketers, the winners share a clear message: AI is increasingly being used not just to cut costs, but to create capacity for the human, relationship-driven conversations that set community institutions apart from megabanks and fintechs. Live Oak Bank: turning service into relationships. Live Oak Bank received the Pacesetter Award for showing how AI-powered customer engagement can lead to deeper banking relationships. The bank more than doubled the share of interactions handled entirely by AI while holding first-contact resolution at 93%. The relationship numbers stand out. Live Oak's checking balances rose 63% year over year, and the share of customers holding both a loan and a deposit account climbed to 25%, up from 18% a year earlier. Josh Goldstein, the bank's contact center director, argued that the industry wrongly treats efficiency and experience as trade-offs, and said AI lets bankers focus on the relationship work that grows loans and deposits. Heartland Credit Union: faster answers by phone. Heartland Credit Union took the Harmonizer Award for streamlining member service across voice channels. The credit union saves more than 6,000 staff hours a year, roughly the capacity of four full-time employees, while cutting average wait times for a live representative by 40% and call abandonment by 54%. Daniel Mijal, Heartland's vice president of digital strategy, said the goal is round-the-clock self-service for members, with employees freed for conversations that call for empathy and personalized financial guidance. He credited the technology with giving the credit union megabank-level scale while keeping its personal feel. Thomaston Savings Bank: knowledge at the frontline. Thomaston Savings Bank earned the Energizer Award for giving frontline staff instant access to institutional knowledge while automating routine tasks. The Connecticut bank has saved more than 1,440 hours since launch, plus an estimated 222 more through AI-driven quality assurance. It is now extending the platform into treasury management and loan operations. Contact center manager Melissa Cipriano said consultants can now get procedural answers without switching systems or interrupting colleagues, leaving more time for in-depth problem-solving and meaningful client conversations. Alliant Credit Union: speed to market. Alliant Credit Union, one of the largest fully digital credit unions in the U.S., won the Prodigy Award for the pace of its rollout. Alliant selected and launched the platform in just eight weeks. In its first year, it supported nearly 300,000 digital interactions, created more than 10,500 hours of annual workforce capacity and contributed to a nearly 20% year-over-year drop in call volume. Chief Operations Officer Stephani Foss said the award reflects the credit union's ability to move quickly and deliver value for both members and employees. The takeaway for financial marketers. Glia CEO Dan Michaeli said AI is shifting from automating simple tasks to handling complex operating procedures, and that the winners have positioned themselves ahead of the industry. Chief Customer Officer Paul Sheets framed the results as proof that local institutions using AI can do more than keep pace with larger competitors. In his words, "they don't just compete - they win." For marketers at community banks and credit unions, the lesson is that AI's payoff increasingly shows up in relationship metrics: wallet share, deposit growth and the time staff can spend on personalized advice. - Advertisement - Hot this week