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🗽 🌃 🚕 Situational awareness: Remember to get your ticket for Axios BFD on Oct. 22 in New York City.

Scribenote, a medical scribe startup for veterinarians, raised an $8.2 million seed led by Andreessen Horowitz, CEO Ryan Gallagher tells Axios exclusively.

Why it matters: The veterinary space is no stranger to the administrative burnout impacting health care, with 86% of vets reporting severe stress.

How it works: Canada-based Scribenote records the conversation during the appointment, using AI to automatically generate accurate medical records in minutes.

Alongside medical records and dental charts, Scribenote also automates various forms of client communication. Users can create offline recordings and sync them later in the case of poor internet connectivity.

Scribenote sells into independently owned and enterprise practices across North America.

By the numbers: Scribenote has more than 500 customers and has automated over 1.5 million medical records, Gallagher says.

Zoom in: The round included participation from Inovia Capital and the Velocity Fund.

"We were profitable before this raise and now it's time to spend more aggressively," Gallagher says.

Follow the money: Driven by an influx of private equity capital, the vet space has consolidated thoroughly — underscoring the need for updated tech and intensifying pressure on vets to see more patients and generate more revenue.

Several tech-enabled veterinary platforms have pursued deals in the last year, including mobile veterinary company TheVets and membership vet clinic network Small Door Vet.

State of play: While AI scribes for physicians have flooded the market, veterinary-focused scribes are fewer and farther between.

Existing players include Scribblevet and VetRec, both of which have raised undisclosed funding amounts, as well as HappyDoc, VetSnap and VetSkribe.

What's next: New funding will finance engineering and marketing efforts, Gallagher says.

"We will create personalized AI scribes for each veterinarian and build an efficient, intelligent platform for editing and finalizing records," he says.

🐶 Fun fact: Gallagher's sister and co-founder Katie Gallagher is a vet, and the company's creation was inspired by the late work hours she was keeping.

Scribenote scores $8.2M for vet AI scribe

Axios Visual of a black labrador puppy holding stack of dollars in mouth

Hippocratic AI, a safety-focused large language model for health care, scored another $17 million led by Nvidia's venture arm.

Why it's the BFD: It puts money behind Nvidia's previously announced collaboration with Hippocratic AI.

Nvidia's NVentures arm was joined by Greycroft and Leo Shapiro of 7Wire Ventures.

Catch up quick: Hippocratic added $53 million to its Series A in March, and announced a partnership with Nvidia to see if the chipmaker's hardware might accelerate response times of its AI agents.

At the time, Nvidia told the Financial Times that the partnership entailed no financial commitment on either end.

The new capital rounds out Hippocratic's Series A — which included investors like General Catalyst and Andreessen Horowitz — to $137 million.

The big picture: Nvidia continues to dominate the generative AI chip market across sectors — vastly overshadowing peers Qualcomm and Intel, which are reportedly in merger talks.  

The chipmaker was the fourth-largest corporate investor in 2023, with a handful of health-focused AI investments.

Between the lines: It's unclear whether Hippocratic's valuation has changed from the $500 million figure it was touting in March.

The company did not respond to a request for comment on valuation or use of proceeds. 

How it works: As with efforts by others in the space, Hippocratic is focused on applying its AI agents to a range of low-risk medical tasks, such as post-discharge follow-ups, health surveys and assessments and pre-operative outreach.

Hippocratic AI bags $17M from Nvidia VC

Animated illustration of a health cross with 0s and 1s running across, some sequences are highlighted as malware.

Want more health tech deals? Check out the Axios Pro Deals Tracker.

• Affinity Equity Partners agreed to buy Lumus, an Australian medical imaging group, from Healius (ASX: HLS) for A$965m. Go deeper

• RF Partners invested in Long Island-based sister companies Altro, a service provider to veterinary distributors and human generic pharmaceutical manufacturers, and Amici Pharmaceuticals, a virtual pharmaceutical manufacturer. Go deeper

• 3B Scientific, a German manufacturer and marketer of medical and scientific educational products, acquired Veterinary Simulator Industries, a Calgary, Alberta, developer of veterinary simulation models. Go deeper

• Agilent Technologies, a biotech research company, completed its acquisition of Biovectra, a Canadian CDMO. Go deeper

• KKR raised $4.6b for its debut fund focused on North American mid-market buyouts. Go deeper

• Stryker (NYSE: SYK) acquired Nico Corp., an Indianapolis developer of neurosurgery medical devices, which has raised roughly $70m from firms like River Cities Capital Funds and Rose-Hulman Ventures. Go deeper

Deals o' the day

👨‍⚕️ Doctors organize to push back against private-equity takeovers — WSJ

👀 FTC's Khan defends her record on "60 Minutes" — Axios

👩 How America's health care system fails women in pain — The Hill

👧 Childhood trauma linked to specific health risks — Axios

Your daily dose

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🛏️ Aaron went mattress shopping this weekend, realizing just how bad his current one is. 

🎉 Thanks for reading, and extra thanks to newsletter editor George Moriarty and copy editor Egan Millard. Please ask your colleagues, friends and family to sign up.

September 23, 2024

1 big thing: Scribenote scores $8.2M for vet AI scribe