Attendees walk through the expo hall at AWS re:Invent, a conference hosted by Amazon Web Services, at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas on November 28, 2023.
Noah Berger | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
Amazon Web Services Venture capital firm General Catalyst on Monday announced a new multi-year partnership in its latest endeavor to carve out a piece of the growing artificial intelligence market in healthcare.
Through this collaboration, General Catalyst companies will use AWS services to more quickly build and deploy AI tools for health systems. Aidoc, which applies AI to medical imaging, and Commur, which automates provider workflows using AI, will be the first two companies to participate.
No financial terms were disclosed in the announcement.
“Without a strong partner like Amazon and AWS to stand alongside them, to co-develop and support these companies…they are not going to move as quickly as we hope,” said Chris Bischoff, global head of healthcare investment at General Catalyst. He told CNBC in an interview.
US health systems are under severe pressure, with overworked staff, growing labor shortages, and thin profit margins. These challenges often seem tempting to technology startups, especially since the multi-trillion-dollar healthcare industry looms with the potential for significant financial returns.
Hospitals operate in a complex, technology-laden and highly regulated sector that can be difficult for startups to break into. General Catalyst hopes to help its companies accelerate development and go-to-market by leveraging resources like AWS computing power.
General Catalyst is no stranger to taking big swings in the healthcare space.
The company has closed more than 60 digital health deals since 2020, behind only Gaingels and Alumni Ventures, according to a December report from PitchBook. In January 2024, General Catalyst shocked the industry by announcing that its new business, a health insurance conversion company, planned to acquire an Ohio-based health system — an unprecedented venture capital move.
General Catalyst's “deep understanding” of the financial and operational realities of health systems made it an attractive partner for AWS, Dan Sheeran, general manager of healthcare and life sciences at AWS, told CNBC. Sheeran and Bischoff began outlining the collaboration between the two groups after meeting in London about nine months ago.
AWS also has an established presence in the healthcare sector. The company offers more health and life sciences services than any other cloud provider, according to a statement, and has signed other high-profile AI partnerships with GE Healthcare, Phillips And others last year.
Sheeran said the partnership between General Catalyst and AWS will span several years, but new tools from Aidoc and Commur are coming in 2025. He said Aidoc is exploring how it can use the cloud to leverage data modalities across pathology, cardiology, genomics and others. Molecular information, for example.
Sheeran said Aidoc and Commur were chosen to begin the collaboration because they have established product-market fit, are operational and focused on issues that are a high priority for AWS customers.
“GC has spent a lot of time thinking about how health systems can transform themselves, and we realize that it's not going to be done by 1,000 companies, and we need truly enterprise-level solutions,” Bischoff said. “Amazon shares the same vision, so we're starting with those two.”
Although the partnership between General Catalyst and AWS is still in its early days, the organizations said they believe it will help serve as a way to meet growing market demand for new solutions.
“Health system leaders who want to realize the benefits of AI now have an easier way to do so,” Sheeran said.
