Northwell invests $3 million in Hume AI to develop speech, expression understanding for healthcare
Hume AI raises $3 million from Northwell Holdings, the investment arm of the New York-based health system Northwell Healthto further develop machine learning models aimed at understanding speech and expression.
WHAT IT DOES
The startup builds natural language understanding tools that take text, audio, video, or images and try to capture meaning, as well as emotions and other expressions. According to the company, some of its tools are intended to record feelings such as surprise, pain, or irony, or to record voice sounds such as gasps, sighs, and laughter.
Hume AI plans to use the capital to refine these ML models for healthcare, including clinical research, patient screening, and accessibility technology.
Rich Mulry, CEO and President of Northwell Holdings, said in a statement: “Technology draws on the latest in science to help us better understand not only what people say, but also what people say. The way they speak, has the potential to profoundly benefit patients,” said Rich Mulry, CEO and President of Northwell Holdings, in a statement.
“We have seen a growing need for this technology in treatment, clinical research, telehealth applications and more. To foster the careful development of potentially capable technologies. With this transformative power, we’re excited to launch a partnership with Hume AI through an investment that demonstrates our confidence in Dr. Alan Cowen and his groundbreaking team.”
SNAPSHOT . MARKET
As reported by the doctors burnout levels are getting higher and higher, several startups have leveraged AI-powered tools to cut down on their administrative work. Abridge, which provides a tool for recording, transcribing and organizing information gathered from conversations with patients, was recently launched. $12.5 million in Series A-1 expense.
Another voice assistant for doctors, Suki, announced it’s done $55 million in Series C . funding last year.
Meanwhile, Northwell is expanding its investment in AI. Last year, the health system partnership with Aegis Ventures about a venture focused on using AI to solve quality, equity, and cost issues in healthcare. Hume is also a portfolio company by Aegis Ventures.
In April, the startup studio and Northwell announced the launch of Ascertaina platform to develop and commercialize healthcare AI companies.
Northwell is also nearby announced a partnership with Google Cloud uses cloud technology and AI to automate administrative processes and identify patient risk factors for early intervention.
