AI Scribe Platforms Get More Venture Funding to Move Further Upstream

The uptake of ambient AI scribe platforms for note generation and documentation by health systems continues at a rapid pace. While it is unclear how many of these platforms will survive long-term, venture capitalists remain bullish on several of the young companies whose platforms are being deployed. 

San Francisco-based Ambience Healthcare recently announced a $243 million Series C round co-led by Oak HC/FT and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).

Ambience is used by health systems such as Cleveland Clinic, UCSF Health, Houston Methodist, and Memorial Hermann. The company says that adoption has been fastest in high-complexity subspecialties, the emergency department and inpatient settings — all areas with the greatest documentation burden.

In a recent interview with Healthcare Innovation, Rohit Chandra, Ph.D., chief digital officer at Cleveland Clinic, discussed the health system’s assessment of multiple vendors based on product quality and long-term potential. “To use a phrase that is used in the tech industry, the scribe capability has almost perfect product-market fit in that it's a relatively easy technology to use. You don't have to do drastic changes to your workflows and processes, and it tackles head on a significant pain point for both patients and providers,” he said. “I wish every technology innovation that you brought into healthcare had those properties.”

Cleveland Clinic aims to roll out the Ambience technology to over 4,000 physicians. 

"The market response to Ambience goes beyond customer satisfaction - it reflects genuine customer love," said Vig Chandramouli, partner at Oak HC/FT, in a statement. "Ambience has developed a comprehensive AI platform that not only works across specialties and integrates seamlessly with EHR systems, but also meets the rigorous standards of compliance teams — a rare and powerful combination. We're proud to support them."

Abridge’s growth

Another big player in this space is Abridge, which is now partnering with more than 150 health systems across the U.S., including Kaiser Permanente, Mayo Clinic, Duke Health, and Sutter Health.  

Abridge recently closed a $300 million Series E funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, and joined by Khosla Ventures. The company says it is now entering a new phase and moving upstream to automate more of what happens behind the scenes and enabling revenue cycle management teams to operate with greater efficiency.  

In an interview with Healthcare Innovation earlier this year, Eric Poon, M.D., chief health information officer for Duke Health, said, “We are certainly very interested in deploying this technology in other clinical settings, and to work with Abridge to think about how you could use it in other aspects upstream and downstream from the patient encounter.”

“While the healthcare system has evolved over the last 30 years, the one constant has been rising costs and the growing burden on clinicians and patients alike. Abridge eliminates inefficiencies at their source, directly in the clinical conversation, with a platform that has demonstrated tremendous traction and impact in the market,” said David George, general partner at a16z Growth, in a statement. “This is a company with truly rare ingredients: world-class clinical and technical leadership, deep scientific credibility, and AI technology that is years ahead of the field. Abridge has both the vision and velocity to create lasting, systemic change, and we are thrilled to be part of their journey.”

Expansion for Nabla

In June 2025, another clinical AI vendor, Nabla, raised $70 million in Series C funding. Led by HV Capital, with Highland Europe joining as key investor, DST Global, and existing investors Cathay Innovation and Tony Fadell's Build Collective, the funding brings Nabla's total raise to $120 million. 

The new capital will support strategic partnerships to expand into new care settings and deliver impact at a national scale, the company said. 

Nabla's AI assistant now embedded in more than 130 healthcare organizations, including major academic medical centers, safety-net hospitals, community health centers and physician groups nationwide. Nabla said it is expanding beyond documentation into a more agentic model of clinical AI. This next phase is envisioned as enhancing clinical documentation integrity (CDI), initiating EHR actions, and adapting across care settings to support diverse clinical roles. By unifying ambient listening, dictation, coding, and command capabilities into a single extensible agentic platform, Nabla said it is building toward its long-term vision: a proactive assistant that intuitively streamlines existing workflows.

"We're going even deeper into clinical workflows while continuing to offer a highly customizable assistant that works across specialties," said Alex Lebrun, co-founder and CEO of Nabla, in a statement. "Clinicians already trust our accuracy and speed, and this funding allows us to expand that impact by embedding intelligent support directly into care delivery. We see a future where AI not only documents care, but actively drives efficiency by executing actions within complex clinical workflows and environments.”

Matt Keefer, M.D., Children’s Hospital Los Angeles’ chief medical informatics officer, spoke with Healthcare Innovation about how his clinical team worked with Nabla during a pilot to adapt their note templates specifically for the pediatric setting. “We worked with the general pediatricians to come up with a better template for keeping track of information that you would have in a typical well-child exam,” he said. “Nabla was able to respond to specific requests for how to format the note in a way that would be germane to a pediatrician.”

‍At the time, the company said it had multiplied its revenue by five over the past six months and supported more than 85,000 clinicians and 20 million annual encounters.
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Of course, there are several other vendors in the space, such as Microsoft’s DAX Copilot. Healthcare Innovation recently wrote about how real-world evidence company Atropos Health will generate evidence that will help Stanford Health Care clinicians finalize their encounter notes, including those generated by the hospital’s ambient AI provider, DAX from Microsoft, without having to leave their existing workflow.

(Watch for our upcoming interview with Providence clinical leaders about their DAX Copilot deployment.)

And there are still new companies popping up, such as San Francisco-based Freed, which has raised $30 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia Capital with participation from Scale Venture Partners, Daniel Gross, Gokul Rajaram, and Ted Zagat. When it announced the funding in March, Freed said it would use the investment to write specialty-specific notes with the headers, sections, and formatting you expect. Rolling out now for Psychiatry, Mental & Behavioral Health, and Emergency Medicine — with Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Orthopedic Surgery coming soon.