Abridge raises $12.5M for AI-backed medical scribe

AI-enabled professional medical documentation startup Abridge announced Thursday it experienced scooped up $12.5 million in Collection A-1 funding. 

The round was led by Wittington Ventures with participation from existing investors like Union Sq. Ventures, Bessemer Enterprise Companions, Pillar Enterprise Capital and UPMC Enterprises. New buyers Canadian computer system scientist and AI qualified Yoshua Bengio and Whistler Funds also joined the raise.

Abridge stated the hottest round brings the company’s funding pot to $27 million.

WHAT THEY DO

The startup provides an AI resource that records and transcribes discussions involving vendors and clients. It then organizes and summarizes that details, pulling crucial details these kinds of as health and fitness ailments, signs and care ideas to the top rated of the report.

The instrument can also deliver notes again to EHRs and integrate with telehealth providers, in accordance to Abridge.

The firm officially launched in 2020, backed by $15 million elevated throughout seed and Sequence A rounds of funding. At the time, Abridge’s app was pitched as a way to aid sufferers observe their clinical treatment, study extra about their analysis and remedies, and deal with upcoming methods. 

Dr. Shivdev Rao, CEO and founder of Abridge, informed MobiHealthNews that the company felt the resource could have immediate effects for patients and family members, but it took several years of research to get ready it for service provider use. 

“It almost feels like you’ve got got an intern in the corner who’s performing your work for you, getting your notes for you,” he explained. “I think the more aspirational vision that we commenced with was that this can build benefit for all people involved. And so now we have received the supplier piece, the hardest piece of that puzzle.”

WHAT It is FOR

Rao reported the startup programs to use the income from the Series A-1 for income, marketing and partnerships with providers, as nicely as to continue on to boost the know-how. 

While the documentation resource can be utilized for specialty treatment, he stated key and loved ones treatment suppliers are a specific concentrate, specifically when it comes to clinician burnout and EHR documentation stress. 

“When you assume about the burnout challenge, my coronary heart goes out to them very first and foremost, due to the fact they are becoming requested to do a lot more and far more just about every working day from a documentation standpoint and from a billing standpoint,” he reported. “And they are also viewing the most sufferers. A busy loved ones exercise clinician could possibly have a couple thousand patients in their panel.”

Marketplace SNAPSHOT

A further AI-backed notetaking assistant for doctors is Suki, which declared a $55 million Sequence C round of funding in December very last 12 months and a $20 million Sequence B from March 2020. 

In the meantime, scribe provider Robin Health care also lifted $50 million in Series B funding at the end of last year. 

Nuance Communications, which Microsoft not too long ago acquired for practically $20 billion, also delivers a medical documentation tool, Dragon Professional medical One particular. Previous yr, Nuance also obtained Saykara, maker of an AI assistant known as Kara.