7 Years Building the AI Layer
for Medical Education
Physicians, deans, and AI EdTech leaders building the new gold standard.
Ora's journey to a nationwide platform
A UCSF phenomenon
- A UCSF student builds his own study method and scores in the 100th percentile on the USMLE.
- He turns it into a tool for classmates. Within a week it's the #1 study resource at UCSF.
- It spreads to Stanford, Harvard, UCLA, Johns Hopkins, and UC San Diego.
Publisher-quality, built for scale
- Backed by Y Combinator, General Catalyst, and top physician investors in a $1.8M seed.
- Teams up with Thieme to bring premium, trusted content into the platform.
- Builds the full suite: QBank, flashcards, and library.
The AI education leader
- Rebuilt AI-native, Ora starts outperforming other platforms on medical student tasks.
- The first multi-institutional RCT of a USMLE QBank shows Ora beating UWorld.
- Brings on a physician and faculty advisory board and launches the MD+ partnership.
The new gold standard
- Opens its institutional platform and starts signing schools.
- Campus ambassador network reaches 200+ students.
- Partners with Sketchy.
- Commits $3M in grants to expand access to medical education globally.
Built by people who've shipped at scale
Meet Ora's leadership team.
Ryan Phelps, MD
CEOEditor-in-Chief
Former Stanford neurosurgery resident and UCSF medical student, with a background in learning psychology and NBME-style question-writing.
Kevin Bastoul
CTOHead of Engineering
Full stack software engineer specialized in AI and EdTech, having built AI-powered educational products used by tens of thousands of students. Previous roles at Square and Veeva Systems.
Jacob Caccamo
COOHead of Design
UX designer and front-end engineer specialized in building EdTech platforms in medicine. Previously at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
A clinical and academic network across 20+ medical schools
7 physician & faculty advisors · 20+ student leaders · 20+ schools
PHYSICIANS & FACULTY ADVISORS
Jessica Valdez, MD, MPH
UCSF Obstetrics & Gynecology, UCSF School of Medicine
General Advisor
Adeel Yang, MD
Founder of Picmonic (acq. by TrueLearn)
General Advisor
Derek Harmon, PhD
Associate Professor
Clinical, Division of Anatomy
Sophie Yu, MD
UCSF Otolaryngology, Harvard School of Medicine
Surgical Subspecialty Advisor
Donald Keating III, DO
Duke Anesthesiology, KCU College of Osteopathic Medicine
COMLEX Strategy Advisor
Hadley Leatherman, MD
University of Washington School of Medicine
General Advisor
Luis Freitas, MD
Universidade Federal do Paraná
IMG Success Advisor
MEDICAL STUDENT ADVISORY BOARD
Alex Zhou
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (MS4)
Amber Chan
Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine (MS4)
Henry Nguyen
Stanford School of Medicine (MS4)
Sunitha Konatham
Texas A&M College of Medicine (MS4)
Andrew Ma
NYU School of Medicine (MS3)
Bryan Colasacco
Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine (OMS3)
Christina Stylianou
UNC School of Medicine (MS3)
Ethan Bernstein
California Northstate University (MS3)
Adil Nawaz
University of Maryland School of Medicine (MS4)
Karthika Venugopalan
DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine (OMS3)
Kor Akiti
University of Pennsylvania (MS3)
Tanish Gandhi
Ohio State College of Medicine (MS3)
Tejas Sekhar
Rush Medical College (MS3)
Aliya Shabbir
Harvard Medical School (MS2)
Ansh Bhatt
University of Miami (MS2)
Gabriel Cuilan
University of Michigan Medical School (MS2)
Hiba Fatima Hamid
Tufts University School of Medicine (M2)
Nikolai Rogalinski
UConn School of Medicine (MS2)
Robert Tran
UC Irvine (MS2)
Shoaib Siddiqui
Lake Erie College of Medicine (M2)
Trevor Sobol
The Ohio State University College of Medicine (M2)
Yashas Basavarajappa
Tufts University School of Medicine (M2)
Spencer Singh
The Ohio State University College of Medicine (M1)
Tina Le
California University of Science and Medicine (M1)
Backed by leading investors
We're Hiring
We're building for every medical student in the country. Come help us.
