PORTOLA VALLEY, Calif., Aug. 21, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Bay Area Lyme Ventures, Bay Area Lyme Foundation’s venture philanthropy initiative devoted to advancing solutions for Lyme disease, today announced that it has invested in LymeLess Health, an AI-powered digital health company focused on transforming how people with Lyme disease navigate diagnosis, treatment, and long-term care. The announcement coincides with the launch of LymeLess’ patient app powered by Ella, an intelligent AI health companion designed specifically for Lyme and tick-borne disease (Lyme+) patients. 

The investment reflects Bay Area Lyme Ventures mission to accelerate promising innovations that have the potential to improve the lives of Lyme disease patients by advancing new diagnostics, therapeutics, digital health technologies, and data-driven approaches to care.

“People with Lyme disease often spend months or years searching for answers while trying to manage an extraordinarily complex illness,” said Linda Giampa, founder and managing director of Bay Area Lyme Ventures. “Bay Area Lyme Ventures was created to help accelerate innovations that can change that trajectory. LymeLess combines patient experience, artificial intelligence, and real-world data in a way that has the potential to empower patients while generating insights that could ultimately advance research across the Lyme disease field.”

Built by siblings and Lyme disease patients Carter and Payton Bradsky, LymeLess was inspired by their family’s own experience navigating years of delayed diagnosis and treatment. The platform was developed to simplify one of the most fragmented patient journeys in medicine by combining personalized care navigation, symptom tracking, treatment management, medical record organization, provider matching, and AI-powered education in one platform. Their platform is powered by Ella, which serves as an intelligent AI health companion designed specifically for Lyme+.

Ella helps patients:

  • Learn about Lyme+ and treatment options using evidence-informed educational resources.
  • Track symptoms, medications, biometrics, and environmental factors over time.
  • Centralize medical records and treatment history in one secure location.
  • Identify patterns that may help patients and their healthcare providers better understand treatment response.
  • Connect with Lyme-literate healthcare providers based on patient needs and preferences.
  • Support the patient-provider relationship by helping patients organize and better understand their health information, and does not diagnose, prescribe, or replace clinical care.

“Most Lyme+ patients are forced to become the advocate, coordinator, and researcher of their own care when they are already carrying an overwhelming burden, juggling multiple providers, conflicting information, overlapping treatments, and hundreds of pages of medical records,” said Carter Bradsky, Co-Founder and CEO of LymeLess. “Ella exists to carry the load, to be the trusted companion who helps patients navigate their health journey with confidence instead of desperation, and to turn what they endure today into the research foundation that changes what they face tomorrow.”

“Technology should reduce the burden of living with complex illness, not add to it,” said Payton Bradsky, Co-Founder and CTO of LymeLess. “With AI, we’re embracing the technology that finally makes it possible to reduce the burden of Lyme, turning the daily work of managing this disease into a conversation rather than a chore. Our goal with Ella is to help patients spend less time managing information and more time focusing on their health, while turning every interaction into knowledge that can move the entire Lyme field forward.”

Unlike general-purpose AI tools, Ella was developed specifically around the complexities of Lyme disease and related tick-borne illnesses. Every interaction helps strengthen a growing real-world evidence based platform built from patients’ lived experiences, creating opportunities to improve care while advancing research. As patients use LymeLess it builds one of the largest longitudinal, real-world datasets focused on Lyme+, creating opportunities to improve clinical decision-making and accelerate future research creating opportunities to improve clinical decision-making and accelerate future research. 

“Our investment in LymeLess represents exactly the type of innovation Bay Area Lyme Ventures seeks to support,” said Giampa. “Digital technologies that empower patients while generating meaningful real-world evidence have enormous potential to accelerate progress toward better diagnostics, treatments, and ultimately cures.”

About Bay Area Lyme Ventures
As the only venture philanthropy fund devoted to advancing solutions for Lyme disease, Bay Area Lyme Ventures, a bold, new impact fund a program of Bay Area Lyme Foundation, is designed to fast-track the most promising Lyme and tick-borne disease diagnostics, therapeutics, and digital health technologies to market, ensuring that these vital solutions reach patients who need them most.

About LymeLess Health
LymeLess Health is an AI-powered precision care platform built specifically for people living with Lyme+ and other complex chronic illnesses. Founded by siblings Carter and Payton Bradsky following their family’s own Lyme disease journey, the company combines artificial intelligence, personalized care navigation, symptom tracking, medical record management, and provider matching to help patients better manage their care while generating real-world insights to advance research. For more information, visit www.lymeless.com. 

About Bay Area Lyme Foundation
Bay Area Lyme Foundation, a national organization committed to making Lyme disease easy to diagnose and simple to cure, is the leading public charity sponsor of innovative Lyme disease research in the US. A 501c3 organization based in Silicon Valley, Bay Area Lyme Foundation collaborates with world-class scientists and institutions to accelerate medical breakthroughs for Lyme disease. It is also dedicated to providing reliable, fact-based information so that prevention and the importance of early treatment are common knowledge. Historically, a pivotal donation from the LaureL STEM fund covered all overhead costs through 2024. In 2023, a Bay Area Lyme Endowment was formed, which allows for 100% of all donor contributions to the Bay Area Lyme Foundation to go directly to research and prevention programs in perpetuity. For more information about Lyme disease or to get involved, visit www.bayarealyme.org or call us at 650-530-2439.

Media contact:
Tara DiMilia
Phone: 908-369-7168
Tara.DiMilia@tmstrat.com


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