AI is becoming more important in healthcare, and firms that combine the two are gaining clients and investors. Ambience Healthcare, which has built an “operating system” for healthcare companies to aid physicians with administrative tasks, has received $70 million to grow. This firm is now concentrated in the U.S. and encompasses clinical work in cardiology, cancer, pediatrics, and ENT.
Ambience does not divulge its client base or platform data processing. UCSF, Memorial Hermann Health System, John Muir Health, The Oncology Institute, GI Alliance, Midi Health, and Eventus WholeHealth are among its clients, and this round’s investors demonstrate its momentum.
Kleiner Perkins and OpenAI’s Startup Fund are heading this Series B, along with Andreessen Horowitz and Optum Ventures, two of its many prior backers. The investment is crucial since Kleiner Perkins and OpenAI have co-invested in other vertically focused AI firms, such as Harvey.AI’s $80 million round in December. With this round, the company has raised $100 million. When it raised its Series A in 2022, PitchBook assessed it at $126 million post-money. 
The two Ambience Healthcare co-founders met at MIT. CEO Michael Ng and chief scientist Nikhil Buduma both have shattered backs and heart troubles. They think it left them acutely aware of patients and clinical procedures’ ups and downs. Ng claimed the accident was a “wake-up call” that focused him on critical and vital topics. “What did I want to do with my life?”
Experiencing medical trauma as a young kid may inspire a person to work in that sector, like in this example. They co-founded Remedy Health, a medical firm, because of that emphasis. That employed AI in clinical settings to assist physicians in identifying diseases, “catching hidden high-risk diagnoses, and projecting the development of patients’ health into the future.” The firm failed to fund beyond the seed stage and shuttered in 2020, suggesting that it was overly ambitious.
Ambience Healthcare is addressing a different, but no less important, aspect of a clinician’s life: the vast amounts of work they need to process as part of their interactions with patients, forms they need to fill out, and actions they need to take to get a patient through administrative, operational, and accounting systems. Administrative work is crucial in the U.S., where healthcare is tied to how someone will pay for it and who will help with it, plus a strong current of litigiousness if something goes wrong.
Ambience covers the various data points a doctor must capture and process when treating patients for dozens of ambulatory specialties. AutoScribe generates notes of emergency and hospital conversations; AutoCDI analyzes past conversations “and past EMR context to ensure that ICD-10 codes, CPT codes, and documentation all appropriately support each other, as well as full audit trails for revenue cycle teams”; AutoRefer improves handoffs to other specialists; AutoAVS does after-visit summaries; and soon-to-launch Au
Ambience doesn’t divulge its platform’s tech or language models, but OpenAI’s funding may indicate a platform partner.
Ng said the tool is not currently providing diagnoses, but it is in the pipeline, as you might expect from the pairs’ experience.
Ambience works in a new space, but it’s still busy. This round and some of the company’s larger rivals have collected at least $175 million, adding to the $240 million medical “co-pilot” tools raised in May, according to CBInsights. Corti, a Danish business that wants to give AI support from admin to diagnostics, raised $60 million last year from prominent investors. Nabla, based in Paris, raised $24 million last month and is valued at $180 million. It works with Kaiser Permanente in the U.S. OpenAI’s biggest partner, Microsoft, is also pioneering with its HealthBot. In 2022, A16Z-backed Komodo laid off workers.
It’s got huge enough potential that AI bulls will keep looking for great bets to promote it. Healthcare is one of AI’s best chances to change the world. Brad Lightcap, COO of OpenAI and manager of the OpenAI Startup Fund, said Ambience Healthcare has established an exceptional team to provide a whole ecosystem of products that effortlessly integrate into practitioners’ workflows, driving AI and medicine ahead.
