The Five Year Desert to Product Market Fit and a $5.3BN Valuation | Shiv Rao, Founder @ Abridge
He outlines a strategy of building proprietary in-house models for latency and cost efficiency while leveraging frontier models for complex tasks, and stresses that winning in vertical AI requires deep workflow integratisummaryBuilding proprietary in-house models is essential for high-stakes clinical workflows where latency matters; A Bridge generates ~40% of its outputs via in-house models to ensure speed and cost control.takeawayCounterpositioning against giants like Microsoft or Epic involves building on top of their infrastructure while owning the intelligence layer, making it difficult for them to replicate without cannibalizing their core butakeaway














