Paris-based startup Nabla, creators of an AI-powered medical scribe called Nabla Copilot, announced it has secured $24 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Cathay Innovation, with participation from ZEBOX Ventures.
Nabla will leverage the new capital influx to accelerate expansion of its Copilot product into the U.S. market, while enhancing the solution’s capabilities. Copilot, which officially launched last March, serves as an automated scribing tool for physicians. It generates clinical notes from patient consultations, transcribing conversations and updating electronic medical records in real time.
Their Copilot platform, shaped by a collaborative effort with physicians, is a prime example of user-centered design in AI development. It is a testament to the company's commitment to practical, real-world solutions, and its impact is already evident—over 20,000 clinicians are using Copilot. The platform is integrated with major Electronic Health Records systems like Epic and Nextgen, and already handles over 3 million consultations annually in three languages.
The startup’s advisory board includes recognized healthcare experts and AI luminary Dr. Yann LeCun, VP & Chief AI Scientist at Meta. Its Copilot technology combines speech recognition neural networks with advanced language processing. This allows the system to analyze consultation audio and identify both common vocabulary and complex medical terminology with high accuracy.
One of the most intriguing aspects of Nabla's success is its advanced speech-to-text technology, crucial to the Copilot's functionality. This technology, crafted with a unique blend of general language skills and specialized medical vocabulary, stands out in a field where many solutions either lack medical accuracy or general language proficiency. By leveraging existing models like Whisper, and refining them with extensive datasets of both general and medical language, Nabla has engineered a solution that excels in both domains. This approach has not only overcome the limitations of commercial speech-to-text APIs but also provided a robust system even in the face of diverse accents and medical terminologies.
The innovative speech-to-text engine forms the backbone of the Nabla Copilot, allowing it to convert medical conversations into structured clinical notes, seamlessly integrated into patients’ medical records. This process involves a sophisticated interplay between live transcription and enhanced text generation, utilizing both the proprietary model and Azure's live system for unmatched accuracy and flexibility.
Nabla offers a range of pricing tiers for Copilot depending on customer size and use case. There is a free version covering up to 30 patient consultations monthly, ideal for light users or those still exploring AI's potential in healthcare. Additionally, interns and residents benefit from unlimited consultations, supporting the next generation of healthcare professionals. For individual clinicians and small practices, the Pro tier is priced at $119 per month, offering unlimited consultations. Finally, large healthcare enterprises like hospital networks and telemedicine platforms can select a tailored Enterprise package. This top-tier plan enables custom integrations, automation building, and dedicated machine learning models trained on an organization's data.
With this new infusion of capital, Nabla is set to accelerate its expansion into the U.S. market and continue to refine its AI solutions. As Copilot expands globally, Nabla ultimately envisions healthcare practitioners focused on delivering patient care rather than administrative paperwork. Its AI assistant promises to tackle mundane tasks that divert physician attention.