Trially secures $4.7M seed round, launches ‘Margo’ AI solution to clear patient bottleneck
September 16, 2025 | Startland News Staff
A Kansas City startup’s AI-first platform is expected to save time — and patient lives — thanks to a successful seed round for its clinical trial recruitment tech, explained Kyle McAllister, noting his startup’s solution could help speed up access to treatment by years.
Trially, one of Startland News’ 10 Kansas City Startups to Watch in 2025, on Tuesday announced a $4.7 million funding round, led by led by Kansas City-based Flyover Capital, with participation from Alpaca, Atria, Blu Ventures, Looking Glass Capital, Redbud, The Council, and Gaingels.
“We’re bridging the gap between life-saving medicine and the people who need it now,” said McAllister, co-founder of Trially, which aims to get patients into clinical trials faster by using its artificial intelligence tools to immediately match and engage them with the right programs.
The simple concept: patients shouldn’t have to wait years for life-saving treatments while trials are running in their own backyard, McAllister added.
Another pain point: With 86 percent of clinical trials delayed because of recruitment failures, the pharmaceutical industry is losing more than $600,000 every day.
“Clinical trial recruitment has been the industry’s Achilles’ heel for decades,” said Thad Langford, founding partner at Flyover Capital. “Trially is the first solution we’ve seen that not only identifies eligible patients, but also engages and enrolls them. We’re thrilled to back Kyle and the Trially team as they accelerate access to life-saving treatments.”
Kyle McAllister, Ramon Prieto, and Trevor Welch, Trially; courtesy photo
The startup on Tuesday also officially announced “Margo,” its agentic AI solution that converts patient matches into participants with its trio of offerings:
- Trially Match — safely reads rich medical data to instantly match patients to trials
- Trially Connect — Margo agentic AI outreach directly pre-screens patient matches to convert qualified candidates into enrollments.
- Trially Intelligence — pipeline radar that proactively alerts a user to trials that are a fit for their patient population with instant feasibility analytics
“Recruitment has always been the bottleneck in clinical research,” said McAllister. “With Margo, we’re not just matching patients, we’re engaging and enrolling them. That’s what sets Trially apart: we can identify patients with 95 percent screening accuracy and then agentic AI can engage them at the exact moment it matters most.”
Trially is the first fully integrated AI platform to tackle the root cause of delay, the company said. Its HIPAA-compliant LLM agents safely analyze unstructured medical data to instantly match, connect and enroll patients in relevant trials — transforming a process that once required 100s of hours of manual chart reviews and cold calling into instant enrollment opportunities.
With its new funding, Trially is expected to accelerate adoption of its platform across research sites, pharmaceutical sponsors, CROs and physician networks, ensuring sponsors can avoid costly delays and patients can access life-saving treatments when it matters most, McAllister said.
RELATED: Trially scaling to next level as an early investor forecasts unlocked opportunity
2025 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
KCPS superintendent to city struggling with violence: When do we all come together?
It’s inexcusable for Kansas City to simply accept 130 murders before it’s even December, Mark Bedell said. “Who do you think are committing these crimes?” Bedell, superintendent of Kansas City Public Schools, asked a crowd gathered Thursday for the Lean Lab’s Launch[ED) Day. “Probably people who have been victims of schools that have failed them…
Kauffman Foundation rolls out $1.2M microlending program to help underserved entrepreneurs
Amid a swarm of 160 events as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation announced a new microlending program to spur investment in underserved entrepreneurs. In partnership with four microfinance lenders, the foundation issued a series of grants totaling $1.2 million that a will change the way the nonprofit microlenders capitalize their…
Scared away from networking events? Anti-social introverts can turn to tech
Networking strength comes in numbers — even for anti-social introverts, Jeremy A. Smith told a crowd Tuesday at Global Entrepreneurship Week. “Anti-social people, myself included, hate events,” he said. But like all other entrepreneurs, such introverts still must build and maintain actionable professional networks from which they can request and receive value, Smith said. In-person networking…
Longfellow Farm coworking the soil amid KC’s urban food desert
In a city ripe with coworking office spaces, there’s a hunger for similar environments outdoors, Ami Freeberg said. As with maintaining individual workplaces, traditional urban farming also can be isolating and expensive, the Longfellow Farm manager said. By working together, however, the collaborative process allows for shared resources, greater human expertise and, of course, more…