Rad AI, a startup aiding radiologists in report generation efficiency, secures $50M in Series B funding from Khosla Ventures
In 2017, Vinod Khosla predicted to CNBC that the role of the radiologist would become obsolete within five years. Although he later extended this timeline to potentially 15 years, he remained steadfast in his belief that AI-powered image recognition could eventually surpass human doctors in diagnosing diseases from scans.
Fast forward seven years, and radiologists still play a crucial role in interpreting most scans, even with the assistance of AI software. However, the immediate challenge facing the healthcare industry is the shortage of radiologists both in the United States and globally.
Despite backing several imaging startups like Vista.ai and Q Bio, Khosla Ventures has shifted its focus to companies aiming to enhance radiologists’ workflow rather than replace them entirely with machines.
On Tuesday, Khosla Ventures led a $50 million Series B funding round into Rad AI, a company specializing in developing tools to streamline report generation for radiologists. Other participants in the round included World Innovation Lab, as well as returning investors ARTIS Ventures, OCV Partners, Kickstart Fund, and Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI-focused fund). This funding round brings Rad AI’s total capital raised to over $80 million.
Founded in 2018 by Dr. Jeff Chang, who completed his medical training as a radiologist at the young age of 16, and serial entrepreneur Doktor Gurson, Rad AI addresses the time-consuming nature of report documentation faced by radiologists. Leveraging Chang’s firsthand experience in the field, the company developed a proprietary LLM (large language model) trained on radiology report datasets to automate the documentation of doctors’ findings and impressions, allowing radiologists to focus more on analyzing images and providing patient care.
