Unlocking growth + $35M in series A funding with AI

We helped PHC Global launch an AI-enhanced bio risk response platform to attract millions from investors and some of the biggest names in tech.

Challenge

Rethinking bio risk management for business

Infectious disease can be a nightmare for companies and their people. Public health expert Dr. Charity Dean (cited for her pandemic prescience in Michael Lewis’s book The Premonition) and her team at PHC Global set out to create a leading-edge digital solution to provide unprecedented risk monitoring, forecasting, assessment, planning, and communication capabilities – empowering organizations to weather future bio threats successfully.

Partnering for product evolution

Put in a time crunch by frontend delivery deadlines, PHC Global asked us to help them demonstrate value to investors and attract top-tier customers by hitting key design and development milestones on-schedule – including an alpha launch just one month away. We provided their team with product strategy recommendations, ongoing design support, full-stack development expertise, and backend integration guidance to help them achieve their ambitious funding and business growth goals.

Defining target users

Building on PHC Global’s insider expertise and pre-launch market research, we facilitated product discovery throughout the design and development process to help inform feature prioritization and market strategy. These initiatives included organizing and conducting interviews with frontline risk mitigation managers in a variety of roles and sectors, which we compiled into user personas that offered insights into target customers’ needs, preferences, concerns, and abilities.

Solution

AI-powered bio threat detection

When outbreaks emerge, risk managers need fast, reliable answers. We helped PHC Global design, train, and implement “Navigator,” an AI search and visualization feature combining a custom-tuned LLM with proprietary data from infectious disease experts and real-time updates from trusted public health sources – empowering users to make data-driven decisions with unparalleled efficiency.

Connecting backend predictions to frontend insights

We worked with PHC Global’s data scientists to connect their sophisticated data-streaming bio risk analysis engine with a newly built, custom-designed frontend. This complex integration became the backbone of PHC’s product, funneling the platform’s real-time probability calculations into actionable recommendations for event planning, travel, exposure response, and more.

Data-powered workforce planning

We helped design and develop a new Workforce Planning Tool driven by PHC Global’s advanced monitoring and analysis engine, empowering decision-makers to anticipate bio threat effects on employee absenteeism up to five weeks in the future and proactively adjust operations to minimize negative impacts.

Multi-layer risk mapping

Staying on top of the health landscape is complicated, but PHC Global’s interactive maps make visualizing it simple. We helped design and optimize features that let users create saved tracking locations, adjusting the radius and threats monitored for each one. The map view also enables users to add or remove threat layers, giving them eyes on all (and only) the information they need to plan for and respond to risk.

Personalized alerts for every user

Customizable notifications let users closely monitor their organization’s most relevant locations, threat categories, and other key risk factors – keeping critical updates highly visible, accessible, and digestible to support fast, informed decision-making in high-stakes situations.

Keeping ahead of emerging threats

Timely, accurate, and clear information is key to crisis response. We designed a gated content management system to securely host health news updates and best-practice guidance, including a “Critical Threats” page activated by high impact bio risk events and dedicated to providing real-time updates and practical resources for risk managers, such as mitigation strategies, quarantine procedure recommendations, and more.

New look, new risk monitoring abilities

We helped PHC Global reimagine their platform’s design system, optimizing it for clarity, accessibility, and market resonance. We also helped create new patterns and elements to support feature expansion, such as the inclusion of influenza infection rate data (alongside the original Covid-19 monitoring).

Praise from our clients

From our seed round on, 20i has been critical in helping create our initial prototypes while beating timelines and expectations. Thanks for being such an incredible partner with a FANTASTIC team!
Charity Dean MD, MPH & TM
Founder & CEO at PHC Global
Charity and I can’t get over the quality of the work, and the stellar teamwork that went in to making it happen. I’m so impressed with what has been done to date, and I’m looking forward to making more great work together in the future!
Chris Latko
Chief Technology Officer at PHC Global

Featured Technologies

UX/UI Design

  • Information architecture
  • User flow mapping
  • Wireframes & visual design
  • Design & prototyping

React

  • Dynamic content integration
  • Real-time editing with Sanity CMS
  • API-driven content delivery
  • Modular, reusable components

TypeScript + Node.js

  • End-to-end type safety
  • RPC communication with gRPC/tRPC
  • API-first architecture
  • Strong client-server typing

Material UI

  • Pre-built, customizable components
  • Consistent design system
  • Responsive layout with Grid & Flexbox
  • Accessibility-ready widgets