Artificial intelligence startup Saykara raises $5 million funding for pioneering AI-powered voice assistant for physicians

Saykara, the leading voice and AI-powered virtual assistant for physicians, has raised $5 million to scale its technology, sales and marketing departments. The latest round was led by SpringRock Ventures, a venture fund focused on the convergence of health care and technology with participation from other investors that include NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Elevate Innovation Partners (EIP), and existing investor Madrona Venture Group. The company also announced that Kirsten Morbeck, Managing Director of SpringRock will join Saykara’s Board of Directors.

Founded in 2015 by Harjinder Sandhu, a former Nuance executive and machine learning veteran, and a team of former product leaders, engineers and machine learning experts from Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Nuance, Saykara is revolutionizing the way providers interact with EMRs, and their patients. Saykara’s AI-powered healthcare virtual assistant helps simplifies the documentation process for physicians, allowing them to spend more time treating patients and less time on administrative tasks. Powered by voice to automate and streamline clinical workflows, Saykara makes physicians more productive and lets you do more with the time you save. Physicians using SayKara cut down their paperwork time by 70 percent.

Saykara has developed a voice-based solution to address the documentation burden faced by clinicians. By some measures, physicians spend an average of two hours in front of a computer for every one hour of patient time. As a result, it’s a leading cause of physician dissatisfaction and burnout – and one of the most pressing problems facing the healthcare industry today. By leveraging voice and AI, Saykara automates critical workflows and provides a smart and scalable solution for any customer, regardless of size. Saykara’s unique approach minimizes deployment lead time and offers customers a high-quality, personalized experience from day one.

“Saykara is led by Harjinder Sandhu, one of the world’s top healthcare experts in speech recognition and natural language processing. Saykara’s differentiated approach to solving the documentation burden for physicians has enabled it to build a compelling product that clinicians find indispensable,” said Kirsten Morbeck of SpringRock Ventures. “We look forward to helping Saykara’s team address this massive problem with a market-leading solution.”

Founded in 2015 in Seattle, a hub of health tech and AI innovation, Saykara makes it easier for physicians to interact with the electronic medical record (EMR) system through a simple and easy-to-use voice- and AI-powered mobile application. Physicians using Saykara have seen up to a 70 percent reduction in time spent on documentation while also improving note quality and eliminating after-hours charting. Saykara is commercially available today and is live at several mid-size and large healthcare systems nationwide.

“We are excited to invest in Saykara to help leverage voice technologies in healthcare,” said Peter Fleischut, M.D., Senior Vice President and Chief Transformation Officer at NewYork-Presbyterian. “We look forward to supporting Saykara to advance this emerging technology and further enhance the provider and patient experience,” added David Tsay, M.D. Ph.D., Associate Chief Transformation Officer at NewYork-Presbyterian.

OrthoIndy, a highly respected orthopedic practice in the Midwest and an early pilot site is in the process of expanding their Saykara rollout. “As someone who sees over 130 patients a week, Saykara has changed my life!” said Mihir Patel, M.D. and member of the Board of Directors at OrthoIndy. “I used to struggle to get my notes completed on time, but with Saykara, I am able to complete high-quality notes before I leave the clinic. Now I get to spend more time with my patients and they love it!”