Pitch Deck That Got Atropos Health $33 Million for Its Generative AI
Pulling and analyzing existing medical data, with traditional methods, can take weeks or months for researchers to complete. A new generative AI tool can create those studies in minutes.
Atropos Health, which makes tech to transform clinical data into real-world evidence, is riding the AI innovation wave to “fill evidence gaps” in healthcare — in particular, to bring information to clinicians on how to treat a patient when literature on their condition doesn’t exist.
“LLMs are becoming very good at summarizing literature,” said Brigham Hyde, CEO and cofounder of Atropos Health. “But what happens if there’s no study for the LLM to reference? That’s where we operate.”
The startup just raised $33 million in Series B funding to power its latest tech. Valtruis led the round, with participation from Cencora Ventures, McKesson Ventures, Merck GHI Fund, and existing investors, including billionaire Jim Breyer’s Breyer Capital, Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective, and Presidio Ventures.
Atropos, founded in 2019, was spun out of technology developed at Stanford University by two of Atropos’ cofounders, Nigam Shah and Saurabh Gombar. That tech was part of the “Green Button” initiative, funded by the National Institutes of Health, which sought to use mass amounts of clinical data from electronic health records to give doctors a second opinion about a patient’s condition at the point of care.
“The key was speed,” Hyde said. “If you can’t do it within a day, the patient’s gone, and it doesn’t help.”
That directive informed Atropos’ development of ChatRWD, which Atropos Health launched in beta form in October to 75 customers. Right now, Hyde said, ChatRWD can generate observational studies within three minutes max.
ChatRWD removes the human component of Green Button, a consultation service still offered by Atropos. With Green Button, Atropos produces observational studies in response to a user’s questions and reviews them within 48 hours.
Atropos launched Geneva OS alongside the bot, a data platform that connects its applications, including its evidence network, which draws on hundreds of millions of de-identified medical records. That network can help doctors access other health systems’ data through Atropos’ partnerships to answer clinical queries when the data from their own electronic health records isn’t sufficient.
Atropos has “dozens” of customers among health systems and life sciences, Hyde said, including Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen.
Funding for generative AI in healthcare is surging, with numerous startups landing big rounds for the tech this year — from clinical documentation startups like Abridge, which grabbed a $150 million Series C in February, to generative AI staffing solutions like Hippocratic AI, which landed a $53 million Series A in March.
As investor interest swells, Atropos faces some big competitors, most notably startup Tempus AI, which filed for a $100 million IPO in May and also has a generative AI tool that produces insights from its large clinical and molecular data library. Atropos says it’s the first generative AI tool to create publication-grade studies from clinical data in minutes.
Atropos’ $33 million Series B funding follows Atropos’ $14 million Series A in August 2022, bringing the company’s total funding to $54 million.
The Series B funding will power Atropos’ continued development and rollout of ChatRWD, Hyde said. He said Atropos plans to publish the results of ChatRWD’s beta in June, and hopes to release the tool to all customers later this summer after publication.
Atropos also wants to land more partnerships with pharma companies and expand further into specialty care and oncology, as well as value-based care, Hyde said. The company announced a partnership with value-based care platform Arcadia in January.
