The healthcare industry as a whole has been more reluctant to adopt the emerging AI trend due to patient safety concerns. However, this scenario has changed and AI is reshaping the healthcare business by delivering solutions that improve patient outcomes while decreasing expenses. It is transforming healthcare delivery, from disease detection to medication discovery and customised treatments.
Reaches $500M valuation
With Microsoft, Google, and Amazon heavily investing in AI models like OpenAI and Anthropic, VCs are turning their attention to startups offering targeted solutions. Hippocratic AI, a young healthcare startup based in Palo Alto, California, leverages generative AI to revolutionise patient care. Now, the company has secured $53 million in funding, spearheaded by VC firms General Catalyst, which recently backed inDrive and Premji Invest, with notable participation from Andreessen Horowitz, which invested in ElevenLabs and Hyperexponential, and SV Angel.
Some of these investors participated in Hippocratic AI’s previous round wherein it raised $50 million last year. With the latest round, the company’s valuation has reached $500 million and the total capital raised accounts for $120 million.
Hippocratic AI will use the investment to fund the safety tests and to accelerate further product development of its first product – a generative AI-based, task-specific healthcare agent.
AI to power healthcare bots
Munjal Shah, a serial entrepreneur, founded Hippocratic AI in 2023 along with a group of physicians, hospital administrators, healthcare professionals and artificial intelligence researchers from El Camino Health, Johns Hopkins, Washington University in St. Louis, Stanford, Google, and NVIDIA.
The company’s AI model will not be involved in medical diagnosis or direct patient interaction. This will allow the company to focus on developing the chatbot’s safety features and guardrails
Hippocratic AI will train its models with healthcare staff, and the company intends to engage closely with healthcare system clients during the development phase, as their patients will be the ultimate consumers.
Partnership with NVIDIA
Recently, Hippocratic AI entered into a strategic collaboration with NVIDIA, highlighting its capabilities to deliver cutting-edge technology to improve patient outcomes. The two companies announced plans to deploy voice-based AI healthcare agents as seen in the demonstration videos. It shows the chatbot instructing someone on how to inject penicillin.
Munjal Shah, Founder and CEO of Hippocratic AI, emphasised the company’s dedication to ensuring the safety and efficacy of its AI chatbots before deployment. “We’re going to sit here until it’s safe, as determined by clinicians,” Shah said.
Chelsea Alves, a consultant with UNMiss, shares her thoughts on this promising healthcare-focused AI endeavour, “AI-driven innovations have immense potential to transform healthcare delivery, but ensuring patient safety and trust is crucial. Hippocratic AI’s multi-layered approach, combined with strategic partnerships like the one with Nvidia, demonstrates a commitment to advancing healthcare while also placing a strong emphasis on patient well-being. By leveraging emerging technology responsibly, Hippocratic AI is poised to make a meaningful impact in improving patient outcomes, from my perspective.”
