This latest round of funding fuels Freed’s rapid expansion beyond AI note writing, building a next-generation AI clinician assistant
Freed, an AI clinician assistant designed to reduce the burdens of medical documentation, announced it has raised $30 million in Series A funding, led by Sequoia Capital with participation from Scale Venture Partners, Daniel Gross, Gokul Rajaram, and Ted Zagat. This brings Freed’s total funding to $34 million, as the startup cements its position as one of the fastest-growing health-tech companies in the U.S.
Tackling Clinician Burnout
Freed exists to give clinicians time back in their day. Today’s clinicians face an overwhelming documentation workload, with many spending 19 hours per week on paperwork and administration.
As a result, the U.S. healthcare system is facing a crisis of clinician burnout, with 50% of physicians reporting symptoms of burnout, and one-third of primary and acute care providers considering leaving the profession altogether. In fact, according to a recent report by the AAMC, the U.S. is set to face a shortage of 86,000 physicians by 2036.
Freed tackles this burnout crisis head-on, using AI to automate documentation and reduce administrative friction. Freed’s AI scribe product, which automates the notetaking process, saves clinicians about 2 hours per day. Since Freed launched in 2023, the company has saved clinicians over 2.5 million cumulative hours.
A Popular Solution Gives Rise to a Health-Tech Anomaly
Widespread early adoption has fueled Freed’s meteoric growth. Since launching in 2023, the company has expanded its user base to more than 17,000 paying customers across 96 specialties. Driven by its direct-to-clinician model, which bypasses the often slow procurement cycles of traditional hospital systems, Freed is seeing 4x YoY ARR growth at scale—reflecting a growth rate more typical of consumer SaaS companies like Slack and Zoom. After gaining popularity primarily among individual and small practices, the company is now seeing increasing demand from larger enterprises and group practices, whose clinicians are also in need of a solution that relieves them of administrative burden.
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“Freed was built as a love letter to clinicians—starting with my wife, a family physician,” said Erez Druk, Freed’s Co-Founder and CEO. “My wife and her fellow clinicians dedicate their careers to caring for others, and they deserve to have a company that dedicates itself to caring for them. They deserve to live balanced lives that allow them to recharge.“
Freed’s origins stem from a deeply personal mission. After years of watching his wife, Dr. Gabi Meckler, spend nights and weekends finalizing patient notes, Druk teamed up with Freed CTO Andrey Bannikov to co-found the company. Both were former Meta engineers who brought years of tech and entrepreneurial experience to the project. They also collaborated with Druk’s longtime friend, Yonatan Loewidt, an entrepreneur who became an early investor.
“What drew me to Freed in the beginning was the relentless focus on solving a real, urgent problem for clinicians,” said Yonatan Loewidt, Freed Founding Investor and Board Member. “Watching the early prototypes we built from scratch evolve into a tool that is now used and loved by thousands of clinicians is incredibly rewarding. Freed is more than a product—it’s a movement to help clinicians reclaim valuable time in their day-to-day lives.”
Building New Features and Capabilities
Alongside the funding announcement, Freed is unveiling new AI-powered and other advanced features that extend its capabilities beyond note writing, accelerating its evolution into a comprehensive AI clinician assistant. These include:
- Specialty-Specific Notes: Notes are tailored and optimized for different clinical specialties.
- Custom Template Builder: Personalized documentation that adapts to each clinician’s preferences.
- Pre-Charting: AI-generated patient summaries and follow-ups to prepare clinicians before patient visits.
- EHR Integration via Browser Extension: Seamlessly integrates Freed’s AI assistant into existing clinical workflows.
“Freed’s AI clinician assistant is transformative, saving tens of thousands of clinicians hours each week. Time and joy are given back to clinicians who, in turn, can provide even better care,” said Josephine Chen, partner at Sequoia Capital. “The healthcare industry is embracing AI technology at an unprecedented pace – and this is only the beginning.”
Freed’s human-centered approach embodies the belief that addressing the clinician burnout crisis head-on equates to fewer clinicians leaving medicine, more people entering medicine, and a healthier healthcare system with better patient outcomes. With Freed, clinicians can finally reclaim what matters most: their precious time and energy.
Source: Businesswire
