TTA’s August Ice Cream Run 3: less activity is more for startups, hard looks at Commure and OpenAI, acquisitions by UHS, DocGo, R1–and UK’s Alertacall sold

August 20, 2026 | by

20-24 August 2026

Enjoy the August Doldrums, because this fall might be awfully…eventful. Our Must Reads are rather Doomful, between exposés on General Catalyst and Commure’s business practices, plus OpenAI’s accelerating troubles that look like Sam Altman is flirting hard with the Devil of Demise. A positive Must Read is on early-stage funding–how doing less will get your company more. Our news roundup highlights several acquisitions and Anthropic partnering with EHR PointClickCare. Speaking of sales, UK’s Alertacall has been sold after great success, and will remain independent.

On the hot subject of AI writing and AI Copy Slop, find out how to spot and avoid it in our thoughts on why TTA remains stubbornly 100% Written By Humans. Grab the cuppa for this one. Else you’ll faint like Pepper!

Please feel free to comment on the articles and pass along this Alert. Let me know if this is worth it to you! Also check out my personal page on Substack.

This Week’s Must Reads: how lack of focus dooms startup financing, Commure’s Sea of Red Flags Flapping, and what happens if OpenAI expires?

News roundup: UHS-Talkspace $850M buy final, DocGo to buy Hicuity Health for $52M in stock/debt, R1 to buy Humata Health, PointClickCare EHR to integrate Anthropic’s AI

UK’s Alertacall sold to Constellation Software’s Volaris Group

Last week’s headlines

Why Readers can be assured that TTA is 100% Written by Humans (A handy guide to detecting AI Copy Slop)

News potpourri: OpenAI sued for practicing unlicensed medicine”, Cleveland Clinic med drone delivery, Solventum separates out health info systems, Unlimited Technology RCM in 3.8M data breach, Samsung Galaxy Buds FDA cleared for hearing assist

VA moves to secure Oracle for its EHR Modernization through mid-2031 (More reasons beyond the obvious)

Breaking report: Oracle drawing up plans to lay off employees in “double digit percentages” by 1 September (We’re waiting for this shoe to drop)

Recent Headlines and Must Reads

News roundup #2: Function Health’s jumbo $450M raise from General Catalyst, Hinge Health’s $105M Cylinder buy, and Throne Science’s $10M Series A

News roundup #1: AI governance ‘in’ with Feds, ATA; Centene’s shrinking but more profitable future; repositions and partnerships for DispatchHealth, WHOOP; Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand modernization

Chutes & Ladders, Oracle Edition: Surprise! Project Jupiter data center build overages, “social costs” multiply. Pentagon inks $7B, 10 year deal for software.

This week’s Must Read: the dangerous financing of AI data center buildouts–and how they resemble the 2020 health tech boom (Remember the SPAC boom that cracked and left nearly all companies and billions in the dust?)

A gloomy view on Oracle going forward: debt, cash flow, and dependence on OpenAI

 

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UK’s Alertacall sold to Constellation Software’s Volaris Group

August 18, 2026 | by

A big UK announcement, made this morning via LinkedIn. Alertacall announced today (17 August) that the company was sold effective 1 July to Volaris Group, a Constellation Software company. Founder James Batchelor MBE announced it this morning via a LinkedIn article written by him. Volaris’ press release is on their website here. (Left: James and Mark Miller, executive chairman of Volaris Group)

Alertacall has been one of the earliest companies active in the UK telecare sector for social housing and retirement living resident engagement, founded 22 years ago–incidentally, a year before Telecare Aware was founded by Steve Hards. Since then, Alertacall has developed three two-way communication product lines–OKEachDay, Housing Proactive, and Beyond Warden Call–and now serves social landlords and retirement village operators with a total of 25,000 homes across over 60 housing providers. Alertacall holds The Queen’s Award For Enterprise in Innovation from 2023. In 2025, Mr. Batchelor was appointed an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for ‘Services to Technology For Older People’ in King Charles III’s Birthday Honours List 2025.

Volaris is an operating group of Constellation Software (CSI) that manages and acquires vertical technology companies. Its operating philosophy is to acquire companies in specific industries and, unusually, hold them forever with a motto of “Forever Invested”, versus the private equity M.O. of selling or IPO-ing them. We last visited CSI when they acquired Allscripts/Veradigm’s five hospital and large physician practice EHRs back in May 2022.to integrate into their Harris Group. CSI owns 1,300 businesses–Volaris over 240–and both are based in Toronto, Canada. Alertacall is headquartered in Windemere, in the Lake District of northwest England. 

James Batchelor’s very personal announcement/memoir about the start, build, and future of Alertacall, and some of his personal plans after 22 years, is a must read over on LinkedIn, as is the Volaris release. Why? The warmth and personalization in both is, particularly these days, also highly unusual. The highlights are that the company remains independent, led by its current leadership team, and James remains as CEO for (in his words) the short/medium term until “an experienced and passionate successor is found”. Yes, James and the Volaris team are actively looking for a successor! Alertacall now has assured financing, intellectual resources, and a forever home in an operating and technology-focused management company.

A TTA Hat Tip™ to the very busy TTA Editor Emeritus, BTW who has a ‘shout out’ in James’ article.