Hippocratic AI, a startup co-founded by Munjal Shah, has recently closed a $53 million Series A funding round, propelling the company’s valuation to an impressive $500 million. The round was led by Premji Invest and General Catalyst, with participation from SV Angel, Memorial Hermann Health System, and existing investors such as Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Bio + Health, Cincinnati Children’s, WellSpan Health, and Universal Health Services. This latest funding brings Hippocratic AI’s total capital raised to $120 million, cementing its position as a leading player in the healthcare AI space.
Munjal Shah founded Hippocratic AI in 2023 with a vision to develop artificial intelligence agents that can assist with low-risk, nondiagnostic, patient-facing tasks. By leveraging generative AI technology, the company aims to create a “constellation” of large language models (LLMs) that can provide services such as patient navigation, chronic care nursing, and dietitian advice. This innovative approach is not meant to replace healthcare professionals but to extend their reach and enhance their capabilities, addressing the global shortage of healthcare professionals and ensuring that more patients can receive the care they need.
Its Polaris architecture is central to Hippocratic AI’s technology, a multiagent LLM constellation optimized for real-time healthcare conversation. This system combines a primary generative AI conversational agent with numerous specialist support agents; each fine-tuned for specific medical tasks. The AI agents undergo extensive training using evidence-based research, simulated conversations, and input from U.S.-licensed nurses and patient actors. This results in empathetic and knowledgeable AI that can engage in natural and supportive dialogue with patients.
Munjal Shah has emphasized the company’s unwavering commitment to safety, stating that it is the guiding principle behind Hippocratic AI’s “safety-first journey.” The company has implemented a rigorous, multiphase safety testing protocol, engaging with a broad network of healthcare systems and professionals to validate its AI agents. This thorough testing process, involving over 1,100 U.S.-licensed nurses and more than 130 U.S.-licensed physicians, ensures that the AI agents are not only accurate but also empathetic and appropriate in their conversations with patients, instilling confidence in the reliability and safety of Hippocratic AI’s technology.
Hippocratic AI’s internal research has yielded promising results, with its AI agents demonstrating superior performance compared to human medical professionals and other LLMs in several nondiagnostic tasks. The company’s AI delivered correct medical advice 96.79% of the time, surpassing the 81.16% accuracy rate of human nurses. Additionally, Hippocratic AI’s constellation outperformed industry giants like Google’s Llama 2 70B Chat and OpenAI’s GPT-4 in recognizing the impact of medications on lab tests, identifying condition-specific disallowed over-the-counter drugs, and detecting toxic OTC dosages.
Munjal Shah’s startup has also made significant progress in developing AI with strong bedside manner. Patients reported feeling nearly equally comfortable confiding in both the LLMs and human nurses, with the AI excelling at getting to know patients individually and creating opportunities to educate them about their conditions. This positive feedback from patients not only demonstrates the effectiveness of Hippocratic AI’s technology but also indicates a growing acceptance and trust in AI in the healthcare industry, a development that should be viewed with optimism by healthcare professionals and investors.
As Munjal Shah and Hippocratic AI continue to push the boundaries of healthcare AI, the company’s focus on safety, strategic partnerships, and precise applications of generative AI in healthcare positions it to play a pivotal role in shaping the future of medical innovation. With the latest funding round valuing the company at $500 million, Munjal Shah’s vision for revolutionizing healthcare with generative AI is rapidly becoming a reality.
