Abridge announced $15 million across seed and Series A rounds. The Pittsburgh-based company’s new app connects doctors and patients so those seeking treatment clearly understand their doctor’s guidance.

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Union Square Ventures and hospital partner UPMC led the round and were joined by Bessemer Venture Partners, Pillar, KdT Ventures, and a group of angel investors that included Esther Dyson, Aneesh Chopra and Zen Chu.

The investment included $5 million in seed and $10 million in Series A funding, Shiv Rao, M.D., co-founder and CEO of Abridge, told Crunchbase News.

“We’re thrilled to support Abridge’s mission to help people better understand and follow through on their health,” said Andy Weissman, partner at Union Square Ventures, in a written statement. “As part of our investment thesis, we back trusted brands like Abridge to broaden access to wellbeing. We believe Abridge can create new trusted relationships between people and their doctors.”

Rao, a cardiologist, left his practice in March 2018 to start Abridge with Sandeep Konam, co-founder and CTO.

“Our vision is to bring compassion and confidence to people’s doctor’s visits,” Rao said.

The new capital will be used to grow the company’s team in the areas of engineering and product development. It will also go toward research and continued improvement of the company’s machine-learning technology and product, Konam said in an interview.

Prior to its launch, Abridge worked with 50,000 people and found that 59 percent said they forget 40 percent of the details and instructions from conversations they had with doctors, such as what they should do next.

Through the app, users can record their health conversations during a doctor’s appointment. Abridge then uses machine learning to provide users with a transcript of those conversations, even defining certain words that are among its more than 400,000-term index provided by the Mayo Clinic.

Based on the doctor’s follow-up plans, the app will identify and highlight next steps in care, like prescription instructions or follow-up appointments. Abridge has partnered with GoodRx to outline what possible medications might cost, Rao said.

There is also a new feature called “1-877-Abridge,” which enables a patient to call a family member through the app and still record the conversation.

“People can listen instead of taking notes, so there is more clarity on what to do,” Rao said. “This is like a second pair of ears for patients, especially if they get a difficult diagnosis for the first time.”

Photo of Abridge co-founders Sandeep Konam and Shiv Rao and app photo courtesy of Abridge
Blogroll illustration: Dom Guzman