This is one of Pittsburgh Inno's 10 Startups to Watch in 2023, with the rest of the list to be rolled out throughout the week. These budding enterprises have been selected following suggestions made by experts in the startup community and an evaluation by editorial staff at Pittsburgh Inno and the Pittsburgh Business Times. A list of all 10 Startups to Watch in 2023 is also available to read online.
Abridge AI
About the company: Abridge AI Inc. is a software company using artificial intelligence to accelerate and enhance medical notetaking accuracy. The startup’s platform can analyze and summarize doctor-patient conversations in real-time to provide clinicians and patients with structured information based on their discussion. It’s part of an effort Abridge hopes will aid health care enterprises in reducing clinician burnout, improving patient satisfaction and achieving better outcomes. To date, Abridge has assisted more than 2,000 clinicians and helped over 200,000 patients via its consumer app. The startup raised a $12.5 million Series A-1 in August 2022, bringing its total funding to $27 million since its founding in 2018 by CEO Shivdev Rao, Sandeep Konam and CSO Florian Metze. Today, it employs over a dozen workers, including a recent hire of former Amazon AI researcher Zachary Lipton, who joined Abridge in February as its chief scientific officer. The company declined to disclose if it is producing revenue.
Why we’re watching: CB Insights named Abridge to its Digital Health 150 list of the most promising medical startups in the country. Abridge is looking to disrupt a significant cause of burnout in a medical field that relies on traditional documentation solutions, which the startup has said tends to be too expensive or too slow to keep up with the needs of modern health care organizations. With Abridge’s platform, clinicians and patients can benefit from real-time summaries and structured documentation. In March, the startup also announced its largest roll out to date of its tech via a partnership with The University of Kansas Health System, which will see Abridge’s platform deployed at up to 140 locations to be used by up to 1,500 practicing physicians across the Kansas City, Kansas-based health system.
What’s their vision for 2023: “Abridge is the most trustworthy platform that delivers medical conversation AI,” Rao said. “Unlike existing solutions, Abridge makes it easy for everyone to secure a reliable and real-time record of medical conversations for doctors and patients alike.”
