Suki raises $70M to build out its AI voice assistant

The company will use the funding to broaden the scope of its AI, including new administrative tasks

Suki is a voice AI company that completes administrative tasks, including retrieving patient information from the electronic health records, thereby reducing the burden of documentation from the clinician, and alleviating burnout, by allowing them to focus on patient care.

On Thursday, the company, which last raised money in 2021, announced a new $70 million round led by Hedosophia, with additional investment from Venrock, as well as participation by existing investors including March Capital, Flare Capital, Breyer Capital, and inHealth Ventures. This funding brings the company’s total raised to $165 million.

Founded in 2016, Suki's offerings include Suki Assistant and Suki Platform; Suki Assistant helps clinicians save time on administrative tasks by generating notes ambiently. It takes dictation and commands, simplifies coding, and answers clinical questions by retrieving relevant chart data from the EHR. This allows health systems to complete notes up to 72% faster.

Suki Platform, meanwhile, is the engine that powers Suki Assistant, and is available for companies that are looking to further their solutions’ proficiencies with AI and voice.

Currently, Suki serves health systems and clinics that include Ascension St. Thomas, Village Medical, Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System, St. Mary's Hospital, and Decatur County Memorial Hospital. It's also used by Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and Community Health Centers, including Utah Navajo Health System (UNHS), CenterPlace Health, Access Health Louisiana, and PrimeCare Health, bringing Suki to clinicians who care for underserved populations.

In March, Suki partnered with Amwell to intgrate Suki's voice AI capabilities into its telehealth platform. Since then, Suki has expanded its health system partnerships and is now used by over 300 health systems and clinics. 

Most recently, the company announced its latest EHR partnership with MEDITECH to bring Suki Assistant to more than 12 new health systems, including St. Mary's Healthcare, Decatur County Memorial Hospital, Citizens Memorial Healthcare, Holyoke Medical Center, and Golden Valley Memorial Healthcare, many of which serve rural communities. 

The company also recently announced an integration with Epic, making it the only product on the market to directly integrate with all major EHRs. 

"We believe strongly in democratizing access to AI so the entire industry can benefit from this ground-breaking technology and our work with rural health systems, FQHCs, and CHCs is a key part of this broader objective.  AI shouldn’t be accessible only to those with deep pockets - anyone who has interest and need in AI should be able to benefit from it," Punit Soni, CEO and founder of Suki, told VatorNews. 

While there are a number of other companies in the AI medical documentation space, most notably Abridge, which raised a $150 million round earlier this year, Soni points to four ways that Suki is unique, including that the product is an AI assistant, not just an AI scribe. 

"Suki does ambient documentation but can do much more, including coding, answering questions like, 'What medications is my patient taking?', and dictation. Our goal is for Suki to help clinicians with every administrative task, and we are continuously introducing new capabilities to expand the breadth of tasks it can handle," he said. 

In addition, Suki works with all the leading EHRs that support ~80% of the market, including Epic, Oracle Cerner, MEDITECH and Athena, and it can work in all care settings, such as ambulatory, inpatient/ED, home health, telehealth. Finally, there's the fact that Suki is also able to act as the AI engine for other healthcare technology companies. 

Going forward, the new funding will allow Suki to invest in commercial initiatives, accelerate product development, and expand its leadership team. That includes investing in its AI and tech teams, as well as growing its marketing, sales, and customer success teams.

With this funding, Suki will also continue to increase the scope of tasks it can handle, including previsit summaries, and orders, so eventually Suki Assistant can help with every administrative task. Similarly, it plans to evolve Suki Platform so it can power more AI experiences for its partners; in the very near term, some upcoming capabilities include the ability to fill out forms by voice, and to use AI to clean up dictated content.

"This funding will help us support our clients’ growth as well as our ongoing Sales and Marketing efforts. We will place emphasis on increasing the visibility of Suki Platform, which we launched in response to market demand for AI capabilities that can be integrated into existing solutions," said Soni.

"The ultimate vision for Suki is to make healthcare technology invisible and assistive, so clinicians can focus on what matters most: their patients. In order to do so, we must make AI accessible for everyone who wants to use it, not just those with deep pockets.  With Suki Assistant and Suki Platform, I believe we are well-positioned to become the de facto AI engine for the industry," said Soni. 

(Image source: suki.ai)