Bot MD Raises $5 Mn In Series A Funding Round Led By Monk's Hill Ventures The new funding will be used for regional market expansion, product innovation, and user acquisition
By Prabhjeet Bhatla •
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Singapore-based smartphone artificial intelligence (AI) clinical assistant for doctors Bot MD on Wednesday announced it has closed a Series A funding round of $5 million, led by Monk's Hill Ventures.
Existing and new investors include SeaX, XA Network, and SGInnovate, healthcare industry veterans Yoh-Chie Lu and Jean-Luc Butel, and Silicon Valley notable Steve Blank.
Following accelerated demand from large hospital and healthcare organizations during COVID-19, the funding has been said to be used to help accelerate the company's growth within the Asia Pacific region through partnerships with public and private hospitals and clinics.
Its partners include the National University Health System, National University Cancer Institute Singapore, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Changi General Hospital, Singapore General Hospital, Parkway Radiology, and the National Kidney Transplant Institute.
"Our company's mission is to empower doctors and to delight them by providing them with an AI assistant that can answer all their clinical queries. We believe that we can help every doctor in the world save time and improve the quality of patient care by making it more convenient and much faster to access the clinical information that they need, wherever they are, 24X7. We are focused on designing a user experience in our platform that modernizes clinical workflows without the need to adopt an entirely new hospital system or change existing workflow," shared Dorothea Koh, chief executive officer, and co-founder, Bot MD.
The healthcare company also plans to use the funding to accelerate its platform expansion into Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and India to support both doctors in large hospitals and smaller general practitioner (GP) or primary care clinics doctors with instant access to the clinical information they need.
"The global pandemic has added tremendous pressure on healthcare systems around the world and reinforced the need for efficient operations and productive healthcare professionals. We have witnessed first-hand the team's strong ability to execute and their sheer tenacity. Unlike other pure software-as-a-service (SaaS) enterprise players, the team's extensive experience in the healthcare industry have given them deeper insights into the real pain points of doctors and hospitals, which has allowed them to build an incredibly intuitive product for doctors to use without any training needed - a feat that is virtually unheard of in the healthcare industry," explained Michele Daoud, partner, Monk's Hill Ventures.
Last year, the platform rapidly grew its user base in Singapore from 20 doctors in January 2020 to over 5,200 clinical users across hospitals such as the National University Health System, National University Cancer Institute Singapore, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Changi General Hospital, and the Singapore General Hospital. In January this year, the company launched a pilot with Parkway Radiology to enable its affiliate network doctors to use the Bot MD AI assistant platform for clinical ordering and scheduling of radiology exams, as well as to immediately view patient radiology reports and scans through seamless integration with Parkway's existing systems.
"Today, seamless integration across hospital systems and instant access to medical information can make a big difference in helping doctors swiftly perform their work. We are pleased to support strong homegrown deep tech startups like Bot MD in building and scaling their solutions, as they meet the growing need for improved healthcare products and services," added Dr. Lim Jui, chief executive officer, SGInnovate.
The company will also expand its design and engineering teams to develop new clinical applications and integrations for its innovative platform. These will include delivering chronic disease monitoring, patient reports, and clinical alerts through the platform, as well as powering consumer messaging applications to empower doctors to deliver patient care.
In 2020, Bot MD released new solutions to support doctors during COVID-19. This includes SGDormBot, the first AI-powered bot for COVID-19 vital signs monitoring and training its AI clinical assistant on COVID-19 guidelines and content.
The company maintains that it rapidly grew its user base in Singapore from 20 doctors in January 2020 to over 5,200 clinical users from hospitals such as the National University Health System, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Changi General Hospital, and the Singapore General Hospital.
In January 2021, the company launched a pilot with Parkway Radiology to enable its affiliate network doctors to use the platform for clinical ordering and scheduling of radiology exams, and to immediately view patient radiology reports and scans when ready.
