US-based Regard Secures $61 Mn to Expand AI-powered Clinical Research

Oak HC/FT led the funding round, with participation from Cedars-Sinai Health Ventures and existing investors TenOneTen Ventures, Calibrate Ventures, and Techstars.

USA-based clinical decision software startup Regard secured $61 million in Series B funding to scale its AI-powered healthcare solutions. 

Oak HC/FT led the funding round, with participation from Cedars-Sinai Health Ventures and existing investors TenOneTen Ventures, Calibrate Ventures, and Techstars.

Established in 2017 by Eli Ben-Joseph, Nate Wilson, and Thomas Moulia, Regard is an AI-driven healthcare startup based in Los Angeles, California. The company specializes in using AI to automatically diagnose patients and generate accurate notes for doctors, aiming to improve patient care and reduce physician burnout. 

"Regard is augmenting patient care by analyzing overwhelming mountains of clinical data and providing clinicians with potential diagnoses and treatment recommendations, impacting the quality and safety of care in real-time,"  said Eli Ben-Joseph, CEO of Regard.

Investment in AI Research

With the new capital, Regard plans to accelerate product development and invest in research in large language models (LLMs). 

The startup aims to leverage vast amounts of clinical data to provide physicians with actionable insights. Currently, doctors utilize less than 3% of patient data, highlighting the gap between data availability and clinical insights.

Regard's platform is designed to analyze all available data and recommend diagnoses, driving better patient care. The software also streamlines clinical documentation in a standardized format, enhancing clinical quality and hospital revenue.

Regard's AI technology, described as a "co-pilot" for physicians, helps streamline documentation and diagnose medical conditions. Since its launch in 2021, the startup has surfaced over three million diagnoses and generated more than $50 million in additional revenue for its healthcare partners. Regard is now valued at $350 million.

Partnerships & Expansion Plans

Regard has partnered with several large health systems, including Banner Health, Sentara, and WakeMed Health & Hospitals. Last year, it collaborated with OpenAI to release new core product functionalities and a chatbot, Max, built on OpenAI’s LLM, GPT-4.

Banner Health plans to roll out Regard’s tool across all 33 acute-care hospitals in its system in 2024. The technology aims to increase face time between providers and patients.

“Electronic medical records are all-encompassing, and there are good things to that, but there are some challenges. Sometimes, pieces of data that clinicians need are difficult to find and could be old,” said Susan Lee, DO, Banner’s physician executive.

Regard’s technology aims to close the gap between data availability and clinical insights. The potential for enhanced patient care is significant with an average of 50,000 data points per patient.

"Regard is augmenting patient care by analyzing overwhelming mountains of clinical data and providing clinicians with potential diagnoses and treatment recommendations, impacting the quality and safety of care in real-time," said CEO Joseph.