Company leader
Abdel Mahmoud
Co-founder and CEO
Anterior
Abdel Mahmoud is the co-founder and chief executive of Anterior, which makes clinical AI that reviews prior authorization requests for health plans. Born in Libya, he came to the United Kingdom as a refugee at eight, served as an infantry officer, and trained as a doctor before turning to software.
From Libya to Sandhurst
Mahmoud came to the United Kingdom from Libya as a refugee when he was eight years old. By 15 he was running his own software business, and at 18 he entered the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, where he became the youngest infantry officer in the UK.
Medicine and Paperwork
After the army, Mahmoud became a doctor. He loved treating patients but grew frustrated with the paperwork that kept him from them, and he eventually left medicine. He returned to University College London for a master's degree in computer science and then worked in product roles at Facebook and Google.
Co-founding Anterior
At UCL, Mahmoud became friends with Zahid Mahmood, a software engineer who had built payment systems for large insurers, and the two founded the company that became Anterior. Sequoia led its seed round through its Arc program, and a $20 million Series A followed in June 2024. He sees agreement among doctors as the hardest technical problem: "Two experienced clinicians can disagree on the right answer in a given medical situation, which makes training and evaluation of an AI tool for this field difficult."
Clinicians Beside the AI
Anterior closed a $40 million round in February 2026, bringing its total funding to $64 million, and its customers include plans covering 50 million lives. Mahmoud built the company around clinicians who work inside each health plan's review team, and he puts the premise directly: "AI only works in healthcare when it's deployed by clinicians, alongside clinicians."