Funding will accelerate growth of Suki’s team, user base, and introduction of product features
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – March 4, 2020 – Suki, which offers a voice-enabled digital clinical assistant, announced today that it has closed a Series B funding round of $20 million. New investor Flare Capital Partners led the round, which also includes new investors Breyer Capital and Epsilon Health, as well as returning investors First Round Capital and Venrock. As part of the funding round, Bill Geary, co-founder and general partner at Flare Capital Partners, will join Suki’s Board of Directors.
In just two years, Suki has established itself as a leading solution to physician burnout. Powered by artificial intelligence, Suki uses natural language processing and machine learning to create clinically accurate medical notes and quickly completes administrative tasks such as retrieving patient information from the electronic health record (EHR).
“It’s clear that physician burnout caused by documentation and administrative burden is a crisis in medicine, which is why we’ve seen such enthusiastic adoption of our technology to date and will continue this momentum with the support of our investors,” said Punit Soni, founder and CEO of Suki. “Suki not only delivers a better physician experience, but also supports high-quality, coordinated care and improved coding and billing through its accurate, detailed medical notes.”
The latest funding round is a testament to Suki's effectiveness in helping doctors. Across its user base, the digital assistant has lowered physicians’ average time per note from more than 13 minutes to just over 3 minutes (76 percent). This is significant, as studies have shown that for every hour of direct clinical facetime with a patient, physicians spend nearly two additional hours on medical paperwork.
Suki has also been shown to decrease claims denial rates by up to 19 percent by generating highly detailed clinical documentation, which is critical to health systems’ and medical groups’ revenue. High-quality, detailed clinical documentation also supports hierarchical condition category (HCC) coding integrity, which is essential for reimbursement in value-based payment models.
“Health systems are waking up to the overwhelming burden of physician burnout, from the financial costs of training doctors and medical records manual entry to the increased likelihood of medical errors. At the same time, they recognize that timely, detailed documentation is essential to accurate coding and reimbursement for their services,” said Geary. “Suki’s natural language processing empowers physicians to more efficiently create detailed records, and its artificial intelligence contextualizes this clinical and billing data for whoever may need it, including clinician or billing staff.”
Suki will use this funding to expand its user base through new and existing partnerships with leading health systems and medical groups across the country. In addition, Suki will advance the AI capabilities of its product and add new features that streamline documentation, coding, billing, and other administrative tasks for physicians. As a true digital clinical assistant, Suki supports doctors practicing in any clinical setting as well as any specialty, including cardiology, orthopedics, plastic surgery, ophthalmology, pediatrics, and family medicine.
"So much of startup success is driven by the quality, vision, and talent of the team behind the innovation. Suki has attracted leading minds in machine learning and healthcare, a unique combination that has resulted in cutting-edge technology capable of integrating seamlessly into a physician's daily practice," said Jim Breyer, founder and CEO of Breyer Capital
The funding comes during a period of significant growth for the Suki team. The company recently added digital health sales leader Jallel Harrati as its vice president of sales and Jatin Chhugani as its vice president of engineering. Harrati most recently served as vice president and national sales leader at IBM Watson Health and Chhugani previously led AI teams for Adobe and Flipkart. Suki will continue to build out its team, as it is currently recruiting positions across engineering, product, and commercial. For more information on opportunities, visit: https://www.suki.ai/careers.
About Suki
Suki is a voice-enabled digital clinical assistant for doctors that lifts the burden of medical documentation and administrative tasks. Powered by artificial intelligence and natural language processing, Suki creates clinically accurate medical notes and quickly completes administrative tasks such as retrieving patient information from the electronic health record (EHR). Suki understands physicians, adapting to their specialty, clinical setting, and speaking style, becoming more personalized as they use it. Used in dozens of specialties, including family medicine, gynecology, orthopedics, ophthalmology, and cardiology, Suki has been shown to decrease claims denials rate by up to 19 percent by generating highly detailed clinical documentation 76 percent faster. Suki’s team includes technologists from Apple, Google, IBM Watson, and McKinsey, and physicians from the University of California, San Francisco and Stanford. Suki is backed by premier investors such as Venrock, First Round, Flare Capital Partners, Breyer Capital and Marc Benioff. To learn more, visit suki.ai, or follow us on AngelList, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
About Flare Capital
Flare Capital is a team of proven healthcare technology venture capital investors and senior operating executives known for their unparalleled strategic industry resources, insight and total commitment to the success of its entrepreneurs. Flare Capital is one of the industry’s largest dedicated venture capital firms focused exclusively on early stage opportunities in healthcare technology and services innovation and is privileged to closely partner with founders and management. Selected investments include Aetion, Aspen RxHealth, Bright Health, Circulation (acquired by LogistiCare), ClearDATA, Cohere Health, Curisium, HealthReveal, HealthVerity, higi, Iora Health, Somatus, Suki, Tausight, Valence Health (acquired by Evolent Health), VisitPay and Welltok.
Learn more at www.flarecapital.com and follow the firm on Twitter @flarecapital
About Breyer Capital
Breyer Capital is a premier global venture capital and private equity investor focused on catalyzing high-impact entrepreneurs in the US and China. Founded by legendary investor Jim Breyer in 2006, Breyer Capital makes long-term, idea-driven strategic investments in artificial intelligence, digital health, data analytics, social media, and financial technologies. The firm prides itself on maintaining an openness to experimentation that can lead to long-term breakthrough performance and partnering with founders and teams who are passionate about building transformative companies anchored in technology. For more information, please visit http://www.breyercapital.com.
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