The healthcare-focused artificial intelligence startup Hippocratic AI Inc. said today it has banked $126 million in its latest Series C funding round, bringing its total amount raised to $404 million at a $3.5 billion valuation.

The round, which comes just 10 months after the startup closed on its $141 million Series B raise, was led by Avenir Growth. Also participating were new and existing backers such as CapitalG, General Catalyst, Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins, Premji Invest, Universal Health Services, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, WellSpan Health and prominent angel investors John Doerr and Rick Klausner.

Hippocratic AI is a developer of generative AI chatbots and agents that are laser-focused on the healthcare industry. Its founding team includes Chief Executive Munjal Shah and various physicians, hospital administrators, healthcare professionals and AI researchers from El Camino Health, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Microsoft Corp., Google LLC and Nvidia Corp.

The startup’s name stems from the oath taken by all doctors who vow to do no harm to their patients. Its mission is to enable AI to be deployed in a safe and responsible way within the healthcare industry so it can help clinicians and hospital administrators to do their work more effectively.

Initially, the company was focused on generative AI chatbots that support clinicians and other healthcare professionals, but more recently it’s looking to cater to patients too. It offers access to a range of AI agents, which are a type of AI that can perform work-related tasks with minimal human supervision.

The agents are accessible through the company’s Healthcare AI Agent App Store. They’re designed to automate various aspects of patient care and help hospitals to relieve the burden caused by a shortage of trained nurses, social workers and nutritionists. For example, one of its AI agents is specialized in chronic care management, while others are designed to handle medication checks and post-discharge follow-ups regarding specific conditions such as kidney failure and congestive heart failure.

What sets Hippocratic AI apart is the way it involves clinicians in the agent design process. It’s possible for clinicians to create an AI agent prototype using its platform in as little as 30 minutes, and then start testing it within three to four hours, the company says.

Each new agent undergoes extensive safety training, with these tests involving both the creator and the company’s own staff. Once the company is satisfied, the agent can be made available to other hospitals via its App Store. The clinician who creates the agent will be able to earn a share of the revenue it generates and can access a dashboard to track how it’s being used by others and receive feedback so it can be improved.

In just 15 months since the company was launched, it has established partnerships with more than 50 large health systems, payors and pharmaceutical companies in six countries. It has also developed more than 1,000 clinical use cases for its AI agents and completed over 115 million patient interactions, with no safety issues.

Hippocratic AI’s backers say the rapid adoption of its agents signals broad trust in the potential of AI in healthcare, with its partners including some of the industry’s most respected names. For instance, Andreessen Horowitz General Partner Julie Yoo said Hippocratic AI is one of the fastest-growing enterprise healthcare companies she has ever seen. “Its rapid growth is a testament to the demand for solutions to our industry’s labor and patient access crisis,” she said.

Shah said the funds from today’s round will help to fuel its expansion through new partnerships, mergers and product development, adding that he’s particularly optimistic about expanding globally. “Every call our agents make is a patient whose life we have helped to make healthier,” he said. “What this capital allows us to do is touch more lives and help more people while staying true to our core values of ‘do no harm’ and ‘patients first.'”

Image: Hippocratic AI