OpenEvidence

AI-powered medical search and clinical decision-support platform for healthcare professionals.

Website: https://www.openevidence.com/

Cover Block

Open sources

Field Value
Name OpenEvidence
Tagline AI-powered medical search and clinical decision-support platform for healthcare professionals.
Headquarters Cambridge, Mass. [Crunchbase]
Founded 2022 [Crunchbase]
Stage Series D+ [Crunchbase, retrieved 2026]
Business Model B2B2C
Industry Healthtech
Technology AI / Machine Learning
Geography North America
Growth Profile Venture Scale
Founding Team Co-Founders (2), Daniel Nadler and Zachary Ziegler [Fierce Healthcare, Jan 2026] [Crunchbase, retrieved 2026]
Funding Label $100M+
Total Disclosed Funding Approximately $660,000,000, based on disclosed Series B, Series C, and Series D rounds [research.contrary.com] [Fierce Healthcare, Jan 2026] [BusinessWire, Jan 2026]

Links

Open sources

What an Investor Needs First

PUBLIC OpenEvidence builds an AI-powered medical search and clinical decision-support product for healthcare professionals, and it merits investor attention because it has paired unusually rapid reported clinician adoption with one of the largest disclosed funding stacks in medical AI since 2025 [Reuters, Jan 2026] [Fierce Healthcare, Jan 2026] [CNBC, Jan 2026]. Founded in 2022 in Cambridge, Massachusetts by Daniel Nadler and Zachary Ziegler, the company is pursuing a physician-first wedge rather than a general consumer chatbot motion, with reported roots in Mayo Clinic Platform Accelerate and a product positioned for point-of-care use inside clinical workflows [Crunchbase] [iheart.com, Oct 2026].

The core product is a medical search engine and generative AI assistant that synthesizes peer-reviewed literature for clinicians, and the company says it complements that search layer with products such as ambient documentation through OpenEvidence Visits and evidence-grading features that surface the certainty behind an answer [Reuters, Jan 2026] [openevidence.com]. Its differentiation appears to rest less on foundation-model novelty than on workflow fit, licensed and peer-reviewed medical content, and clinician-specific distribution, including reported content arrangements with publishers such as Elsevier and JAMA Network [Axios, Nov 2023] [Fierce Healthcare] [openevidence.com].

The team is led by Nadler, previously the founder of Kensho Technologies, which S&P Global acquired for $550 million according to Forbes, while co-founder and CTO Ziegler is listed by Crunchbase as OpenEvidence's technology lead [Forbes, Mar 2018] [Crunchbase]. That prior company-building record matters here because OpenEvidence is attempting to sell trust as much as software, and the presence of chief medical officer Travis Zack, MD, PhD, adds clinical credibility to a product category where governance and medical judgment are central to adoption [Stanford Medicine, Jul 2026].

On financing, disclosed rounds total about $660 million, including a $210 million Series B in July 2025, a $200 million Series C in October 2025, and a $250 million Series D in January 2026, with investor participation reported from firms including Google Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Thrive Capital, DST Global, Sequoia, Coatue, and Mayo Clinic [research.contrary.com] [Fierce Healthcare, Oct 2025] [CNBC, Jan 2026] [BusinessWire, Jan 2026]. The business model is unusual for clinical software: OpenEvidence says the core product is free to verified physicians and monetizes through pharmaceutical and medical-device advertising, while also developing enterprise integrations, which creates a large top-of-funnel opportunity but leaves open questions about durability of monetization and workflow expansion [openevidence.com].

Over the next 12 to 18 months, the key watchpoints are whether reported physician usage converts into durable enterprise embedding, whether the company can expand product scope beyond search into documentation and deeper consultation support without increasing clinical risk, and whether competitive pressure from incumbent clinical reference tools remains manageable as scale rises [The New York Times, Oct 2025] [Fierce Healthcare, Jan 2026]. Reported adoption figures are striking, but many of the largest usage claims remain single-source or company-adjacent, so the central diligence task is separating genuine daily clinical dependence from broad but lighter engagement [Forbes] [iheart.com, Oct 2026] [Becker's Hospital Review].

Partially corroborated -- This section relies on a mix of independent reporting, Crunchbase, and company materials, with several material adoption claims supported by only one public source or company-adjacent interviews.

Taxonomy Snapshot

Axis Value
Stage Series D+
Business Model B2B2C
Industry / Vertical Healthtech
Technology Type AI / Machine Learning
Geography North America
Growth Profile Venture Scale
Founding Team Co-Founders (2)
Funding $100M+ (total disclosed ~$660,000,000)

Inside the Company

PUBLIC

OpenEvidence is a Cambridge, Mass.-based healthtech company founded in 2022 by Daniel Nadler and Zachary Ziegler [Crunchbase] [OpenEvidence]. The company describes itself as an AI-powered medical search and clinical decision-support platform for healthcare professionals, with a product designed to synthesize peer-reviewed medical literature for physicians at the point of care [OpenEvidence]. Crunchbase identifies Ziegler as co-founder and CTO, while the company names Nadler and lists an investor roster that includes Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures, Thrive, Coatue, DST, Andreessen Horowitz, Mayo Clinic, Nvidia, and others [Crunchbase] [OpenEvidence].

The public record shows unusually fast financing compression for a company formed in 2022, though the core corporate timeline is still best anchored to first-party materials rather than media coverage. On its About page, OpenEvidence says the platform is free to verified physicians, monetizes through pharmaceutical and medical-device advertising alongside enterprise integrations, and offers products including its core clinical search experience and OpenEvidence Visits, an ambient documentation tool [OpenEvidence]. Crunchbase and the company website together support the basic chronology: founded in 2022, scaled with venture backing, and by 2026 presenting itself as a national platform for clinicians rather than a narrow pilot product [Crunchbase] [OpenEvidence].

Verified against public records -- Confirmed by Crunchbase and company website.

Under the Hood

MIXED OpenEvidence is positioned as a clinician-facing medical search and decision-support product, not a general consumer chatbot. Public descriptions are consistent on the core workflow: physicians ask clinical questions, and the system returns synthesized answers drawn from peer-reviewed literature and clinical guidance [Reuters, Jan 2026] [Fierce Healthcare, Jan 2026] [openevidence.com]. The company says the product is free to verified physicians, trained on peer-reviewed literature, and built to surface evidence at the point of care; its website also states that answers can include figures, tables, multimedia, and full-text clinical findings from JAMA and JAMA Network specialty journals [openevidence.com] [Fierce Healthcare].

The product surface appears broader than search alone, although the evidence base is uneven across modules. OpenEvidence's website describes EvidenceGrade, which provides a real-time assessment of the certainty behind each answer, and OpenEvidence Visits, an ambient documentation tool that records, transcribes, and generates clinical notes in real time [openevidence.com]. Public reporting also points to content and data partnerships that matter for product quality, including Elsevier's reported partnership with OpenEvidence in 2023 and a multi-year agreement with JAMA Network for content from 13 journals [Axios, Nov 2023] [Fierce Healthcare]. A voice interface was reported in May 2026, but that feature is less directly corroborated than the core search product and should be treated as a secondary capability rather than a central one [Wikipedia, May 2026].

The technical stack is only partially visible from public materials, so most architecture-level conclusions would be premature. What can be said with confidence is that the company presents itself as an AI system specialized for medical professionals, with a continuously monitored security program and licensed or partnered content sources that are unusual for a generic model layer [openevidence.com]. The available job postings suggest expansion around deployments and health-system integrations, which supports the idea of a growing enterprise layer, but any deeper stack claims would be inference rather than reporting [startup.jobs, Nov 2026] [jobs.nonlinearproject.com].

Claim stands unchecked -- Core product claims rely heavily on the company website, with partial corroboration from Reuters, Fierce Healthcare, Axios, and JAMA-related coverage.

Market Research

PUBLIC

This market matters now because clinicians are under growing time pressure, medical knowledge keeps expanding, and the commercial response has shifted from generic AI tooling toward domain-specific systems that can operate inside a regulated clinical context [Reuters, Jan 2026] [Fierce Healthcare, Jan 2026].

The cleanest way to frame OpenEvidence's addressable market is not through a disclosed company TAM, because none was confirmed in the retrieved third-party material, but through adjacent public markets that bracket the opportunity. On one side sits clinical reference and decision support, where UpToDate is the most obvious incumbent comparator named in the research; on the other sits ambient documentation and workflow software, where OpenEvidence's product surface appears to be broadening beyond search into tools such as OpenEvidence Visits, according to the company [openevidence.com] [Fierce Healthcare, Jan 2026]. Reuters describes the core product as a specialized medical search engine that helps clinicians find and synthesize information from peer-reviewed journals and clinical guidelines, which places it squarely in the clinical information layer rather than a consumer health or general productivity category [Reuters, Jan 2026].

Demand signals in the public record are unusually strong, even after discounting for the fact that several figures come from interviews or company-linked sources rather than audited disclosures. Reported usage ranges from support for about 15 million clinical consultations a month to 17 million monthly clinical queries, with physician reach cited at more than 40% of U.S. physicians in some sources and higher in others [The New York Times, Oct 2025] [iheart.com, Oct 2026] [Forbes] [nbcnews.com]. Even if those figures are treated cautiously, the direction is consistent across sources: physicians appear willing to adopt a free, evidence-oriented search tool if it reduces lookup time at the point of care and stays grounded in licensed or peer-reviewed content [Reuters, Jan 2026] [Axios, Nov 2023] [Fierce Healthcare].

The main tailwinds are visible in the product and distribution choices. The first is clinician burnout and documentation load, which make time-saving tools attractive even before a health system signs an enterprise contract; that helps explain a physician-first, free-to-user wedge [openevidence.com] [Sequoia Capital, Nov 2026]. The second is the availability of licensed medical content, with reported agreements spanning Elsevier and JAMA Network, because in clinical AI the dataset and rights structure are part of the product, not just procurement detail [Axios, Nov 2023] [Fierce Healthcare]. The third is institutional validation from healthcare-facing backers and programs such as Mayo Clinic Platform Accelerate and Mayo Clinic as an investor, which does not prove efficacy but does matter in a category where trust and procurement friction are high [iheart.com, Oct 2026] [openevidence.com].

The adjacent markets are important because they widen the revenue surface beyond medical search. If OpenEvidence remains primarily a reference tool funded by pharmaceutical and device advertising, it competes for budgets adjacent to medical media and point-of-care promotion rather than only software spend [openevidence.com] [sacra.com]. If products such as ambient documentation and deeper consultation workflows become material, the company also edges into clinical workflow, scribing, and health system software, which are operationally different markets with longer sales cycles and heavier scrutiny [openevidence.com] [podcasts.apple.com] [Fierce Healthcare, Jan 2026]. That distinction matters for investors because usage scale in a free physician tool does not automatically convert into enterprise software economics.

Regulation and macro conditions cut both ways. AI deployment in medicine benefits from a policy and industry environment that is actively testing clinical AI, but that same environment raises the standard for evidence quality, citation transparency, privacy controls, and content licensing [Stanford Medicine, Jul 2026] [Reuters, Jan 2026]. OpenEvidence's emphasis on peer-reviewed literature, licensed content, and features such as EvidenceGrade appears designed to align with that environment, although the supporting claims are still largely company-sourced [openevidence.com]. The broader macro point is straightforward: healthcare remains one of the few AI markets where end-user time saved can be economically meaningful, but credibility failures are likely to be punished more severely than in general knowledge work.

Market frame Public evidence Relevance to OpenEvidence
Clinical decision support and reference Reuters describes OpenEvidence as a specialized AI-powered medical search engine for clinicians using peer-reviewed journals and guidelines [Reuters, Jan 2026] Core category for the current product
Point-of-care medical advertising Sacra reports advertising CPMs reaching $1,000+ [sacra.com] Relevant if the free physician product is monetized through pharma and device advertising
Clinical content licensing Elsevier partnership reported by Axios; JAMA Network content agreement reported by Fierce Healthcare [Axios, Nov 2023] [Fierce Healthcare] Suggests data rights and content access are strategic inputs, not commodity costs
Ambient clinical documentation and workflow Company says OpenEvidence Visits records, transcribes, and drafts notes in real time [openevidence.com] Indicates expansion into an adjacent workflow software market

The picture that emerges is a company operating at the intersection of several real healthcare software and media budgets, rather than inside a single neatly bounded TAM. That is attractive, but it also means the eventual market size depends on which monetization path proves durable: advertising, enterprise workflow, or a hybrid of the two.

Claim stands unchecked -- This section relies on a mix of independent coverage and company-sourced product and monetization claims, with no confirmed third-party TAM/SAM/SOM figures in the retrieved material.

Competition and Substitutes

Competitive map

MIXED OpenEvidence appears to be positioning itself less as a general-purpose chatbot and more as a physician workflow layer, which places it closest to clinical reference incumbents such as UpToDate, while also putting it in the path of broader medical AI assistants built into content and workflow systems [Reuters, Jan 2026] [Fierce Healthcare, Jan 2026] [openevidence.com].

Company Positioning Stage / Funding Notable Differentiator Source
OpenEvidence AI-powered medical search and clinical decision-support platform for healthcare professionals Series D; disclosed funding totals roughly $660 million Free product for verified physicians, with answers grounded in peer-reviewed literature and licensed journal content; monetization includes pharmaceutical and medical-device advertising according to the company [BusinessWire, Jan 2026] [Fierce Healthcare, Jan 2026] [openevidence.com]
UpToDate Clinical reference and decision-support incumbent used by clinicians Not disclosed in the supplied sources Entrenched reference product in point-of-care clinical information [user-provided structured facts]

The competitive stack breaks into three lanes. Second are challengers built around generative search and summarization, where OpenEvidence is trying to replace keyword-and-article retrieval with an answer layer trained on peer-reviewed medical literature [Reuters, Jan 2026] [openevidence.com]. Third are adjacent substitutes, especially large publishers and workflow vendors that can embed AI into products clinicians already use, a dynamic signaled by OpenEvidence's own content agreements with Elsevier and JAMA Network rather than displaced by them [Axios, Nov 2023] [Fierce Healthcare].

OpenEvidence's edge today looks strongest in distribution and content access, though both advantages need to be qualified. Public reporting says the platform has reached more than 40% of U.S. physicians, supports roughly 15 million monthly clinical consultations, and has usage across thousands of care centers, which, if directionally right, gives it a physician footprint that most new entrants do not have [The New York Times, Oct 2025] [iheart.com, Oct 2026] [Forbes]. The content side also matters: Reuters describes the product as a specialized medical search engine for clinicians, while Axios and Fierce Healthcare point to partnerships with Elsevier and JAMA Network, suggesting OpenEvidence has assembled licensed inputs that are harder to replicate than a thin model wrapper [Reuters, Jan 2026] [Axios, Nov 2023] [Fierce Healthcare]. That said, durability is mixed. Distribution can strengthen quickly when a free product becomes habitual, but content access and advertiser monetization are perishable if publishers decide to keep more value inside their own AI products or if health systems prefer AI features from existing workflow vendors.

The main exposure is that OpenEvidence does not appear, from the public record supplied here, to control the deepest incumbent channel. OpenEvidence also faces a structural limit if the category shifts from stand-alone search to native features inside the software clinicians already open all day. Its product expansion into documentation with OpenEvidence Visits and voice interfaces shows management understands that risk, but those features are company-described and the evidence in the supplied material does not yet show the same independent adoption proof as the core search product [openevidence.com] [Wikipedia, May 2026].

The most plausible 18-month scenario is a split market rather than a single winner. Winner if X: OpenEvidence, if physician daily use remains high and enterprise integrations mature without losing the simplicity of the free search product, because that would let it move from reference utility to workflow habit while preserving its current distribution edge [clinicalaireport.com] [Sequoia Capital, Nov 2026]. Loser if Y: UpToDate, if clinicians increasingly prefer conversational synthesis over static article navigation and if OpenEvidence's licensed-content strategy keeps answer quality high enough to satisfy institutional buyers [Reuters, Jan 2026] [Fierce Healthcare, Jan 2026]. The reverse case is also easy to see: if publisher-owned and workflow-native AI tools absorb the summarization layer, then OpenEvidence risks becoming an important but narrower front end rather than the control point in clinical knowledge work [Axios, Nov 2023] [Fierce Healthcare].

Opportunity

Upside Case

PUBLIC The prize here is not another clinical software module, it is the possibility that one physician-facing AI interface becomes a daily decision layer across U.S. care delivery, then extends into the workflows and budgets that already surround the doctor.

The clearest upside is that OpenEvidence becomes the default clinical knowledge and workflow surface for practicing physicians, a position that would place it closer to infrastructure than to a single-purpose app. That outcome is at least reachable on the current public record because the company has reported unusually broad physician penetration for a product founded in 2022, with figures ranging from more than 40% of U.S. physicians to nearly two-thirds, depending on source and date [iheart.com, Oct 2026] [NBC News] [Forbes]. Usage intensity also appears high: The New York Times reported about 15 million clinical consultations a month in October 2025, while later coverage cited 17 million monthly clinical queries and internal-research summaries pointed to continued growth into 2026 [The New York Times, Oct 2025] [iheart.com, Oct 2026] [Becker's Hospital Review]. If even part of that reported engagement holds, the company has already crossed the harder threshold, habitual use at the point of care, which is what makes adjacent monetization and workflow expansion plausible rather than theoretical [openevidence.com] [Fierce Healthcare, Jan 2026].

The paths to very large scale are narrower than broad healthcare-AI rhetoric suggests, but they are visible. The table below frames three public-evidence scenarios.

Scenario What happens Catalyst Why it's plausible
Physician default OpenEvidence becomes a daily reference and answer engine for a large share of U.S. doctors, taking mindshare from legacy clinical reference tools Reported penetration above 40% of U.S. physicians and 15,000 U.S. care centers [iheart.com, Oct 2026] Clinician adoption appears ahead of most healthtech rollouts, and the product is positioned as free to verified physicians, which lowers trial friction [openevidence.com] [iheart.com, Oct 2026]
Content-and-workflow hub The company turns search into a broader clinical workspace through licensed content, ambient documentation, and deeper consult features Elsevier partnership and JAMA content agreement, plus launch of OpenEvidence Visits and EvidenceGrade [Axios, Nov 2023] [Fierce Healthcare] [openevidence.com] The company already combines evidence retrieval with answer generation, and public product claims show expansion into note generation and evidence scoring rather than staying a narrow search box [Reuters, Jan 2026] [openevidence.com]
Healthcare media and enterprise monetization layer OpenEvidence keeps the physician product free, then scales high-value advertising and enterprise integrations around a concentrated clinical audience Reported pharmaceutical and device advertising model, with Sacra citing CPMs above $1,000 [openevidence.com] [sacra.com] A verified physician audience using the product during working hours is commercially distinct from general search traffic, and investor interest implies the market believes this can support more than consumer-style ad economics [newsletter.lukesophinos.com] [BusinessWire, Jan 2026]

The compounding logic is straightforward if the reported usage figures are directionally correct. Free access for verified physicians widens top-of-funnel adoption, licensed and peer-reviewed content improves trust, repeated point-of-care usage deepens habit, and that habit supports either premium enterprise workflow products or high-value advertising against a scarce professional audience [openevidence.com] [Reuters, Jan 2026] [sacra.com]. Product breadth matters here: public materials point not only to the core medical search engine, but also to OpenEvidence Visits, EvidenceGrade, Voice Mode, and references to AI Scribe and DeepConsult, which suggests a strategy to turn a single query tool into a broader clinical operating surface [openevidence.com] [Wikipedia, May 2026] [podcasts.apple.com]. The licensing side may also reinforce the moat. Elsevier was reported as a partner in 2023, and Fierce Healthcare reported a multi-year JAMA Network content agreement, both of which could make the product more defensible if clinicians come to expect full-text and journal-grade evidence inside one interface [Axios, Nov 2023] [Fierce Healthcare].

The size of the win is already being sketched by private-market pricing, albeit with caution because those marks are reported rather than filing-backed. Public coverage places the company at $3.5 billion in July 2025, $6 billion in October 2025, and $12 billion post-money in January 2026 [research.contrary.com] [Fierce Healthcare, Oct 2025] [CNBC, Jan 2026]. Business Insider later reported a $15 billion valuation in September 2026 [Business Insider, Sep 2026]. On a scenario basis, not a forecast, if OpenEvidence becomes the physician default and successfully adds workflow and monetization layers, the current range implies investors already see a path to a platform-scale asset rather than a feature business. In that case, an outcome above the latest reported private valuation is conceivable, particularly if the company can sustain daily clinical usage at national scale and convert that attention into enterprise revenue streams without breaking physician trust [Business Insider, Sep 2026] [The New York Times, Oct 2025] [openevidence.com].

Partially corroborated -- This section relies on a mix of independent reporting and company claims. Funding and valuation datapoints are corroborated by named publishers, but core usage, monetization, and product-breadth claims remain only partially corroborated across public sources.

Sources

Open sources

  1. [Axios, Nov 2023] OpenEvidence partners with Elsevier to give doctors AI access to research | https://www.axios.com/2023/11/14/openevidence-elsevier-clinicalkey-ai

  2. [Bloomberg, retrieved 2026] Daniel Nadler, Kensho Technologies Inc: Profile and Biography | https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/person/18630963

  3. [BusinessWire, Jan 2026] OpenEvidence Raises $250 Million to Build Medical Superintelligence for Doctors | https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260121029132/en/OpenEvidence-Raises-%24250-Million-to-Build-Medical-Superintelligence-for-Doctors

  4. [CNBC, Jan 2026] OpenEvidence raises $250 million at $12 billion valuation in round led by Thrive and DST Global | https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/21/openevidence-raises-250-million-at-12-billion-valuation.html

  5. [Crunchbase, retrieved 2026] OpenEvidence - Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/openevidence

  6. [Fierce Healthcare, Jan 2026] JPM26: OpenEvidence makes the case for AI-powered 'medical superintelligence' | https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/ai-and-machine-learning/jpm26-openevidence-makes-case-ai-powered-medical-superintelligence

  7. [Fierce Healthcare, Oct 2025] OpenEvidence raises $200M, hits $6B valuation as medical AI race accelerates | https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/ai-and-machine-learning/openevidence-raises-200m-hits-6b-valuation-medical-ai-race-accelerates

  8. [Forbes, Mar 2018] Billionaire Steve Cohen Leads $550 Million Deal For Boston AI Startup Kensho | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/03/12/billionaire-steve-cohen-leads-550-million-deal-for-boston-ai-startup-kensho/

  9. [Reuters, Jan 2026] OpenEvidence develops specialized AI-powered medical search engine for clinicians | https://www.reuters.com/world/us/openevidence-medical-ai-search-engine-2026-01-21/

  10. [Sequoia Capital, Nov 2026] Daniel Nadler on OpenEvidence: Doctors’ Favorite AI App | https://sequoiacap.com/podcast/training-data-daniel-nadler

  11. [Stanford Medicine, Jul 2026] Travis Zack on OpenEvidence and the Future of Medical AI | https://medicine.stanford.edu/news/stories/episodes/travis-zack-medical-ai.html

  12. [The New York Times, Oct 2025] How Doctors Are Using A.I. to Answer Clinical Questions | https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/health/doctors-ai-clinical-questions.html

  13. [Wikipedia, May 2026] OpenEvidence | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenEvidence

  14. [iheart.com, Oct 2026] OpenEvidence Co-founder & CTO Zack Ziegler | https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-the-heart-of-healthcare-a-84491131/episode/how-a-small-team-built-the-307334105/

  15. [jobs.nonlinearproject.com] Nonlinear jobs listing for OpenEvidence | https://jobs.nonlinearproject.com/companies/95feb7ea-3e12-4c83-81bd-5d4c1d7e657d

  16. [openevidence.com] About | OpenEvidence | https://www.openevidence.com/about

  17. [research.contrary.com] OpenEvidence | Contrary Research | https://research.contrary.com/company/openevidence

  18. [sacra.com] OpenEvidence revenue, valuation & funding | Sacra | https://sacra.com/c/openevidence/

  19. [startup.jobs, Nov 2026] OpenEvidence jobs | https://startup.jobs/company/openevidence

  20. [user-provided structured facts] UpToDate competitor reference | https://www.uptodate.com/

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