How Did Abridge Go From One Product to Three?

Fred Wilson says Abridge went from one product to three after making all of its money for the last five or six years on a single product. The AI for healthcare company, a star of the 2016 fund, launched two new products in the last 12 months, really two new lines of business.

USV is marked by very long-term investing. Everyone there is still working on companies funded over a decade ago, and the test as companies grow is whether the team can launch new products and new lines of business. At the annual CEO summit last week, a casual conversation covered exactly that record: all the money for five or six years from one product, and the greatest pride in the two launches over the last 12 months. Abridge is now a three-legged stool instead of a one-legged stool, so the business is going to be much more stable. The three products are very synergistic. When a customer adopts one, they are kind of locked in. When they adopt a second, they are more locked in. When they adopt a third, they are kind of all in on Abridge.

The shift is the evolution from a great company to a potentially fantastic company. A venture fund usually has two or three, maybe four companies that end up as the stars. Reaching the star group takes one of two or three things. What is happening at Abridge is the favorite example of a company that could be like 100X.