Recently digital clinical documentation company Augmedix landed $40 million through a new IPO. The company, which is trading on Nasdaq under the symbol AUGX, offered a total of 10,000,000 shares of common stock at $4 per share. 

According to the release, the underwriters had a 30-day option from the day the stock went public to purchase up to 1.5 million additional shares of common stock at the IPO price.

This news comes roughly a year after the company announced that it had closed a $25 million private placement that would merge the company with Malo Holdings, a SPAC company. This reverse merger listed the company under over-the-counter (OTC) securities. However, the recent IPO “uplisted” the company to Nasdaq. 

WHY IT MATTERS 

More and more digital health companies are hitting the public markets. In 2020, Rock Health reported on six new digital health IPOs, as well as Augmedix's reverse merger. In the first half of 2021, six companies completed an IPO, five completed a SPAC merger, and 11 announced SPAC mergers expected to close in 2021, according to a Rock Health report.

THE LARGER TREND 

Augmedix was founded in 2012 and made its funding debut in 2014 with a $3.2  million investment, which went towards developing a Google Glass clinical documentation service for clinicians. Since then, the company went through a number of funding rounds before the reverse merger in 2020. 

Today there are several companies working on medical transcribing. Recently, voice-powered doctor’s assistant Notable announced $100 million in Series B funding. Others in the space include Robin Healthcare, which developed an AI-backed workflow management tool, and Suki, which created a natural language processing system to help providers reduce their paperwork.