Company leader
TJ Ademiluyi
Co-founder and CEO
Alaffia Health
TJ Ademiluyi is the co-founder and chief executive of Alaffia Health, a New York City company whose AI software and team of nurses and coders review expensive hospital claims for health plans. Ademiluyi grew up around a family medical billing business in Columbia, Maryland, worked in technology investing at Goldman Sachs, and started Alaffia in 2020 with a sister, Adun Akanni. Ademiluyi believes health plans can bring down the cost of care without losing the trust of the hospitals and members on the other side of each claim.
A Medical Billing Family in Columbia, Maryland
Ademiluyi grew up in Columbia with three siblings, and their parents own a medical billing company, Business Insider reported in 2022. That business gave the family a close view of how hospital bills are built and paid. "The reason why we decided to found Alaffia is to take, in essence, the legacy version of what our family business has been doing and really take it to the next level," Ademiluyi told the publication.
From the University of Maryland to Goldman Sachs
At the University of Maryland, Ademiluyi invested through a student-run venture fund. After graduating in 2017, Ademiluyi joined Goldman Sachs in New York City, working on technology investments, according to the same Business Insider profile.
Starting Alaffia With Two Sisters
Ademiluyi launched Alaffia in 2020 with a sister, Adun Akanni, who became chief operating officer, and another sister, a pharmacist, later joined the company. The startup went through the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator in New York City, and early customers included self-insured employers and the administrators that pay their claims. The name is a greeting that stands for peace, health, and wellness, according to the company's about page.
When Alaffia appeared in the Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2022, TechCrunch described a company whose nurses, certified coders, and billers checked AI findings on hospital bills for unbundled charges, implants, and surgeries. "We leveraged key insights from our family's medical billing company in founding Alaffia," Ademiluyi said then.
In February 2026 Alaffia raised a $55 million Series B led by Transformation Capital, bringing its total funding past $73 million.
Keeping Humans at the Helm
In a March 2026 Q&A with citybiz, Ademiluyi described Alaffia's approach as keeping a "human at the helm" of AI reviews and criticized older claims review vendors: "Traditional vendors scaled by adding more labor, not better intelligence." Ademiluyi said the longer goal is to "help create a system where cost containment doesn't come at the expense of trust."