Physicians and partners proved harder to impress than casual chatbot users, and the biggest AI valuations of 2026 went to the startups that impressed them anyway. Abridge, the medical-scribe firm Shiv Rao founded, doubled to $5.3 billion in four months during 20251. OpenEvidence doubled again inside twelve weeks, from $6 billion to $12 billion23. Kensho founder Daniel Nadler built it. Harvey and Legora each crossed multibillion-dollar marks56. The two legal-AI firms are now in open competition. Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan backed Harvey directly4.
Medicine's Documentation Boom
Rao's Abridge sells an AI scribe that listens to clinical encounters and drafts the notes, a category that sounds narrow until the price curve says otherwise1. TechCrunch reported the valuation doubling to $5.3 billion within four months in June 2025. Few had re-priced that fast. Momentum carried into 2026, and Abridge hired San Oo as tech chief in May. Forbes named Rao to its inaugural list of "America's 250 Greatest Living Innovators" that February.
Rao still practices cardiology one week a month7. He talks about the market in plain terms. Asked about valuations, he pushed back on the standard worry: "I actually think AI is underhyped. I think valuations are underhyped — for the companies who've got real fundamentals right now". Weigh the qualifier at the end. Rao concedes the bubble question. Then he draws a line through the middle of it, with his own company on the sturdy side.
Ownership matters to Rao too. "We have 100% full control, and that's super important to me," he said, speaking as a former corporate venture investor at UPMC7. Clinical documentation eats hours physicians would rather spend with patients. That pain point runs specific1. A general assistant struggles to match a tool built around medical terms, billing codes, and malpractice-aware phrasing.
The ChatGPT for Doctors Doubles Down
Nadler positioned OpenEvidence as the ChatGPT for doctors2. It answers clinical questions at the bedside. He has since pushed back on his own shorthand: "'ChatGPT for doctors' is a useful shorthand, but what we really do is help physicians make high-stakes clinical decisions at the point of care"8. The correction works. A chatbot answers a question, and a decision tool carries liability for the answer.
Kensho sold in a deal OpenEvidence's own materials call the most valuable AI acquisition recorded to that point2. Investors weighed it. TechCrunch's Rebecca Bellan reported a $200 million round at a $6 billion valuation in October 2025. Three months later, Julie Bort reported a $250 million Series D3. Thrive Capital and DST Global led it, and the valuation hit $12 billion10. Nadler told CNBC the product reaches 40% of United States physicians8. Revenue topped $100 million last year. Two funding events twelve weeks apart, each doubling the company's worth. Physician trust converts into venture pricing.
OpenEvidence's twelve-week doubling measures capital more than it measures clinical certainty. Hannah Galvin, a pediatrician and chief health information officer at Cambridge Health Alliance in Massachusetts, is running her own study of the tool before her hospital system expands its use. An academic study released in December, still awaiting peer review, found OpenEvidence's accuracy on complex medical questions fell under 45 percent9. "We want to make sure that we have explored and understood how these tools are performing for our population and that they are making decisions in a fair, valid, equitable and safe manner," Galvin said. The plural in "these tools" matters. Galvin's study weighs OpenEvidence against general chatbots too, treating a question the market has already priced as still open at her own hospital.
Law's Rivalry Sharpens
Harvey sells agentic legal research and drafting tools to the world's largest firms4. Its own newsroom confirmed an $11 billion round in March. The framing: scaling agents across law firms and companies. Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan followed with a strategic investment in July, which put two banks that usually finance legal-tech vendors on the cap table instead. Harvey closed the summer with AIUC-1 certification. Its own site calls them the first certified AI agents in law. Steve Zad joined as chief revenue officer in early August.
Adoption numbers back the funding4. Harvey counts more than 2,400 law firms and in-house legal teams, over 200,000 individual professionals, upward of 75 AmLaw 100 firms, and users spread across more than 70 countries.
Legora, the Swedish rival founded by Max Junestrand, refused to cede ground5. TechCrunch's Anna Heim reported a $5.55 billion valuation in March 2026. A $5.6 billion figure followed by April6. Coverage framed the round as sharpening the rivalry with Harvey. A marketing campaign featuring the actor Jude Law accompanied the April announcement. Celebrity ads are unusual for enterprise legal software. Legora means to compete on brand as well as product.
OpenEvidence leads four health and legal AI firms at $12 billion, double its value twelve weeks earlier
Most recent valuation reported for each firm, June 2025 to April 2026, billions of dollars
Each bar is one firm's latest reported valuation: the magenta bar is OpenEvidence, and the gray bars are Harvey, Legora and Abridge.
Sources: TechCrunch [1]; TechCrunch [3]; Harvey [4]; TechCrunch [6]. Chart by Ryan Elliott Dennis.
The numbers behind this chart
| Item | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| OpenEvidence | $12B | Up from $6 billion twelve weeks earlier, on a $250 million Series D |
| Harvey | $11B | After its March 2026 round |
| Legora | $5.6B | By April 2026, up from $5.55 billion the prior month |
| Abridge | $5.3B | After doubling in four months, reported June 2025 |
Capital Chases Clinical and Courtroom Credibility
Health care and law share a structural feature that explains the 2026 prices: both sell to professionals whose liability exposure makes them unusually cautious buyers. Each rewards a vendor that earns trust once with years of growing use. Ambience Healthcare staked out territory close to Abridge's, backed early by OpenAI and Kleiner Perkins in a 2024 round that signaled how many entrants this category could hold1. The clinical-notes category drew several funded entrants, rather than settling on one winner.
Investors here accept a tradeoff general AI companies rarely face. The market narrows1. Defense comes from domain expertise, compliance work, and word-of-mouth that beats any ad budget. Rao's medical training and Nadler's Kensho record gave both founders standing with wary buyers before either shipped. General AI labs coming at health care or law from outside rarely carry that head start. Junestrand and Rao alike leaned on founder-market fit when recruiting5. Domain standing hires clinicians and lawyers willing to trade billable hours for equity.
What Verticals Prove About Horizontal Models
Read together, Abridge, OpenEvidence, Harvey, and Legora argue against a winner-take-all future for foundation models alone, and they make the case with prices rather than with argument. General chatbots handle breadth well. A cardiologist documenting a complex visit needs a tool tuned to that workflow and trained on that vocabulary1. The vendor has to take liability questions a horizontal platform would rather avoid. A litigator drafting a motion under deadline needs the same. Capital increasingly follows that logic, rewarding founders who chose depth over reach.
By the numbers
- Abridge's valuation hit $5.3 billion after doubling in four months, reported June 20251.
- OpenEvidence reached $6 billion after its October 2025 raise2.
- Twelve weeks later it hit $12 billion, on a $250 million Series D led by Thrive and DST3.
- 40%: the share of United States physicians Nadler says the product reaches, on revenue above $100 million last year8.
- Harvey's valuation reached $11 billion after its March 2026 round4.
- 2,400-plus: law firms and in-house legal teams using Harvey, per the company's own figures4.
- Legora reached $5.6 billion by April 2026, up from $5.55 billion the prior month56.
What to watch
Harvey's Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan investment deserves a follow-up look4. Large banks rarely take direct equity in legal-tech vendors. Deeper integration would explain why these two did. OpenEvidence's next milestone shows whether the twelve-week doubling pace continues or settles into something steadier3. Legora's Jude Law campaign offers a natural test6. Does celebrity marketing move enterprise software buying the way it moves consumer buying? Abridge's roadmap under San Oo bears watching1. Does it reach past notes into clinical decision support?
Sources
- Marina Temkin, "In Just 4 Months, AI Medical Scribe Abridge Doubles Valuation to $5.3B," TechCrunch, June 24, 2025, https://techcrunch.com/tag/abridge/
- Rebecca Bellan, "OpenEvidence, the ChatGPT for Doctors, Raises $200M at $6B Valuation," TechCrunch, Oct. 20, 2025, https://techcrunch.com/tag/openevidence/
- Julie Bort, "OpenEvidence Hits $12B Valuation, With New Round Led by Thrive, DST," TechCrunch, Jan. 21, 2026, https://techcrunch.com/tag/openevidence/
- Harvey, "Harvey Newsroom," Harvey, Aug. 4, 2026, https://www.harvey.ai/en-US/newsroom
- Anna Heim, "Legora Reaches $5.55 Billion Valuation as AI Legal Tech Boom Endures," TechCrunch, March 10, 2026, https://techcrunch.com/tag/legora/
- Anna Heim, "Legal AI Startup Legora Hits $5.6B Valuation and Its Battle With Harvey Just Got Hotter," TechCrunch, April 30, 2026, https://techcrunch.com/tag/legora/
- HLTH, "Interview with Shiv Rao, CEO of Abridge," HLTH, May 25, 2026, https://hlth.com/insights/articles/interview-with-shiv-rao-ceo-of-abridge
- CNBC Staff, "OpenEvidence, the 'ChatGPT for doctors,' doubles valuation to $12 billion," CNBC, Jan. 21, 2026, https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/21/openevidence-chatgpt-for-doctors-doubles-valuation-to-12-billion.html
- Jared Perlo, "Most U.S. doctors are quietly using this AI tool. Few patients know about it," NBC News, May 13, 2026, https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/openevidence-ai-doctor-medical-physician-login-app-what-npi-uptodate-rcna341064
- Heather Landi, "OpenEvidence clinches $250M series D as AI platform sees explosive growth with doctors," Fierce Healthcare, Jan. 21, 2026, https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/ai-and-machine-learning/openevidence-clinches-250m-series-d-rapidly-growing-its-reach-doctors