Welcome to our Ecosystem Highlight series, where you’ll meet the innovators in our vast ecosystem of startup builders from Tampa-St. Petersburg, who are actively solving some of the world’s greatest challenges. We interviewed Paul Evans, Founder & CEO of Pathi Health, a bilingual, AI-powered cancer navigation platform that helps underserved patients understand their records and find matching clinical trials.

What were you doing previously, and what inspired you to join, launch, or help grow your company?

Previously, I was teaching college entrepreneurship courses and running my University’s pre-accelerator program I built. The inspiration for my company came from my experience as a caregiver for my father after his diagnosis with a glioblastoma, a terminal brain cancer. I had to manage his fragmented records, take endless phone calls, and navigate a world of healthcare that I was completely unfamiliar with. I successfully found a clinical trial for my dad and, after being given 10 months to live, he’s still here with us 11 years later. The mission of Pathi is to help patients navigate this life-altering time with clarity to make informed decisions about their diagnosis and treatment. I believe healthcare doesn’t just need better technology; it needs better humanity, too. And Pathi provides both.

What pain point is your company solving? What gets you excited to go to work every day?

Changing how healthcare works is what gets me excited every day. After experiencing what I did with my dad and talking with hundreds of patients, clinicians, researchers, caregivers, etc., I see the evolution that needs to take place. How patients should own their information, be empowered to make decisions that are informed, and feel comfortable advocating for themselves. Right now, they’re at the mercy of a system that is in no way incentivized to give patients control of their own medical information. Being a part of this change is what gets me out of bed each morning.

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced in helping build or scale the company? How did you overcome it?

After completing the Health Wildcatters accelerator in November 2025, my tech team came to me and said they couldn’t build what I wanted them to build because they didn’t have the technical expertise. I was able to successfully part ways with each, and I started building Pathi from scratch myself. Never having written a line of production code in my life, I built and deployed HIPAA-compliant web and mobile apps, was accepted into the American Cancer Society’s Brightedge Entrepreneurs program, and am building relationships with some of the largest patient advocacy groups and safety-net hospitals in the country.

Where do you see your company headed next?

Our next steps are onboarding patients, which we’re in the process of doing, and completing our pre-seed raise. I also expect to build relationships with patient advocacy organizations, which we’re also in the process of executing (Susan G. Komen, CancerCare, CancerCareServices, and others).

Give us a tactical piece of advice that you’d share with someone building or growing a company.

Stay as lean as possible. The tech that exists today allows you to get much farther, much faster, with far less money and a much smaller team. Traditional company-building strategies don’t apply anymore. Vision is the new moat, not technology.

Why Florida?

It’s my home state, and I want to make a lasting impact on it. It’s favorable to businesses and homeowners, and a great place to raise my kids. The fishing isn’t too bad either!

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