Healthcare IT · Clinical documentation and coding
Knowtex
An ambient AI platform that turns doctor patient conversations into notes, billing codes and orders. Founded in San Francisco in 2022, it spent three years selling to small oncology practices, then became one of two vendors the Department of Veterans Affairs picked to run its ambient scribe program nationwide.
The oncologist who said he would have to die first
Caroline Zhang, Knowtex’s CEO, tells a version of the same story to explain what the company sells. A 75 year old oncologist who had never used a scribe, who printed twenty pages of paper every day for chart review, who saw his handwritten notes as his legacy, was asked to try Knowtex. His verdict, as Zhang recounted it in January 2026: “I’ll have to die before this technology can help me.”
Six months later, by Zhang’s account, he was using it for every visit and had a new answer when anyone suggested taking it away: “Do not take it away from me.”
That is a founder’s retelling, not independent, but it is how Knowtex describes building its first product.
The problem it says it is solving
Knowtex’s pitch, unchanged since its 2022 Y Combinator listing, is about documentation burden and revenue leakage. The company states that EHRs have pushed manual documentation onto doctors, that medical coding has grown past 145,000 codes, and that healthcare organizations leave an estimated $125 billion a year on the table through improper documentation and coding. Those are Knowtex’s own figures, not ones this page can verify.
What it built: a voice AI system that drafts a note in the clinician’s format, suggests ICD-10 and E&M codes, and stages lab, imaging and medication orders for one click approval. The company says it is EHR agnostic, connected to Epic, Cerner, Athena, OncoEMR and Flatiron, per Zhang in a January 2026 interview.
Two Stanford freshmen, then two years in scrubs
Zhang and Jocelyn Kang, Knowtex’s CTO, met as freshmen at Stanford studying AI and linguistics. Zhang’s background, per Y Combinator, includes biomedical research at the Salk Institute, investment banking at Morgan Stanley, and AI policy work at Schmidt Futures, plus a Stanford master’s in computer science. Kang worked as a product manager, designer and engineer at several startups, including as a founding product team member at Learn to Win, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude from Stanford in an interdisciplinary computer science and linguistics degree.
The founders say they spent a combined year as medical scribes, building the product at night. Knowtex started in oncology, which the company calls one of the hardest tests for a documentation system.
From oncology clinics to the VA, in three steps
The turning point traces through federal milestones that are unusually well documented for a company this size. In 2023 and 2024 the VA ran an AI Tech Sprint with two tracks, one for ambient dictation of clinical encounters. Knowtex was one of 15 finalists VA named in that track in January 2025, alongside Abridge, Commure and DeepScribe. Abridge, not Knowtex, was the track’s outright winner; VA’s July 2024 notice named Abridge and Nuance Communications for sole source pilot contracts. Nuance never received a final award. Per Fierce Healthcare’s September 2025 reporting, Knowtex took the second pilot slot after Nuance fell out.
That pilot became a contract. USASpending’s award record shows the VA signed a $14,995,950 award with Knowtex Inc for cloud hosted ambient dictation software as a service, start dated July 21, 2025, about three months before the October 2025 date used in the public announcement. By February 2026, Knowtex says VA cleared it for nationwide primary care rollout. By September 2026, the company says it was live in 79 VA medical centers and 310 plus facilities across 10 Veterans Integrated Service Networks, serving more than 7,000 clinicians.
Then came the bigger prize. On September 18, 2026, VA’s Technology Acquisition Center awarded a new multi vendor, five year Ambient Scribe Enterprise IDIQ with a shared ceiling of $775.72 million across all awardees, per Nextgov/FCW’s reporting on an Abridge release. That story, as first published, was about Abridge alone. Nextgov added a line after publication noting Knowtex told the outlet it had also been selected, and that VA had not responded to a request for comment. Knowtex’s own release calls itself one of two prime awardees.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| VA contract value | $14,995,950 awarded to Knowtex Inc, start July 21, 2025, end March 20, 2027, for cloud hosted ambient dictation SaaS. Matches the “$15 million” figure Knowtex and the press use, though the announced date, October 2025, trails the recorded start by about three months. | Public record |
| 2024 AI Tech Sprint standing | VA News named Knowtex one of 15 finalists in the ambient dictation track, not a top 3 among 150 entrants as the company’s website now claims. Abridge and Nuance, not Knowtex, received the initial sole source pilot awards; Knowtex entered after Nuance was dropped. | Differs from record |
| New VA enterprise IDIQ | Independent reporting (Nextgov/FCW, CDO Magazine) confirms a $775.72 million, five year, multi award IDIQ, and centers its coverage on Abridge. Knowtex’s status as a second prime awardee comes from the company’s own statement to Nextgov, added after the story first ran. VA had not independently confirmed it in the sources checked here. | Company-stated |
| Peer-reviewed outcomes study | JCO Oncology Practice published a study (Toussi, Zhang, Kang, Licitra) of 25 physicians at a multisite oncology practice using the Knowtex scribe. Intervention physicians saw more patients and billed about $433.61 more per working day, with no change in diagnostic codes per visit. Two of four authors, including the CEO and CTO, are Knowtex employees. | Public record |
| SEC filings | A search of SEC EDGAR’s full text search and company database for “Knowtex” returns no Form D filings and no other filings under that name as of September 25, 2026. | Not found |
| Total funding raised | Forbes reported in December 2025 that Knowtex had raised $3.5 million from investors. Knowtex’s site lists backers by name only, including Y Combinator, HF0, Stanford StartX Med, Texas Medical Center Innovation and Jeff Dean, with no amounts attached. | Independent |
| Revenue and growth claims | Knowtex says it is cash flow positive with 10x revenue growth and 100x customer growth since the start of 2026, serving more than 300 organizations. No independent financial disclosure was found to confirm these figures. | Company-stated |
| KnowBench benchmark | Knowtex published KnowBench, an Effort Reduction metric, on arXiv and reports a 97.99% score. The benchmark and the score are both the company’s own construction; no third party replication was found. | Company-stated |
Read plainly: the federal contract is real and confirmed at $14,995,950. What is thinner is the story around it: the Tech Sprint standing is smaller than the company now describes, its newest contract rests on its own word, and its growth metrics are self reported.
What to watch
- Whether VA itself, not Knowtex, confirms it as a prime awardee on the $775.72 million IDIQ, and whether a task order follows.
- Whether Knowtex files a Form D or otherwise discloses an equity round, since none is on record as of September 25, 2026.
- Independent, non company authored clinical evidence beyond the JCO Oncology Practice study its own executives co-authored.
- Named non federal health system customers, since the “300+ organizations” figure is not itemized.
In their words
“We call ourselves a frontier AI lab because Knowtex is at the edge of what AI can be trusted to do inside a real clinical workflow: coding an oncology chart correctly, understanding a Veteran’s history across decades of care, giving a physician more of the visit back for the patient.”
Caroline Zhang, CEO and co-founder, PR Newswire release, Sept 15, 2026 · Company release
“That is what a lab does. We built the yardstick before we built the product.”
Jocelyn Kang, CTO and co-founder, PR Newswire release, Sept 15, 2026 · Company release
“Being named a prime on VA’s enterprise ambient scribe contract is an honor and a responsibility. We earned VA’s trust one clinic, one clinician, and one Veteran visit at a time. We are proud to continue that partnership at enterprise, national scale.”
Caroline Zhang, CEO and co-founder, GlobeNewswire release, Sept 25, 2026 · Company release
“Ambient AI inside VA has to perform in the real exam room, on real systems, for clinicians who have no time to spare.”
Jocelyn Kang, CTO and co-founder, GlobeNewswire release, Sept 25, 2026 · Company release
“Today was the first time I have been able to complete my notes and go home on time since I started working at VA 10 years ago.”
Unnamed Kansas City VA provider, quoted in Knowtex’s GlobeNewswire release, Sept 25, 2026 · Company release
“Do not take it away from me.”
Unnamed oncologist, quoted by Caroline Zhang, Techy Surgeon newsletter interview, Jan 16, 2026 · Interview
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordAward record 36C10G25C0013, Knowtex Inc
- Public recordSEC EDGAR full text search and company search, “Knowtex”
- Public recordImpact of AI Scribes on Physician Productivity and Workflow in Medical Oncology
- Public recordVA chooses finalists in health care worker burnout competition
- IndependentVA plans to award AI tech sprint winners contracts for ambient medical transcription services
- IndependentVA plans to roll out Abridge and Knowtex AI tech across its health system
- IndependentKnowtex launches frontier healthcare AI lab
- IndependentAbridge selected for VA ambient AI enterprise contract
- IndependentVA Awards New AI Scribe Contract, With Lessons for Governing AI at Scale
- InterviewKnowtex’s CEO Believes Ambient AI Is Healthcare’s Next Operating System
- IndependentKnowtex, 30 Under 30 Finance 2026 profile
- CompanyKnowtex company page and founder bios
- CompanyKnowtex, the First Frontier AI Lab for Healthcare, Named Prime Awardee on VA’s Nine-Figure Ambient Scribe Enterprise Contract
- CompanyKnowtex Launches the Frontier AI Lab for Healthcare
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
