[Funding Alert] Sequoia Leads $16 Mln Round In Healthcare AI Start-Up Qure.ai The Mumbai-headquartered company said it would use the fresh funds to expand geographically, expand product portfolio and support regulatory clearances.
By Debroop Roy
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Qure.ai, a healthcare artificial intelligence provider, has raised $16 million in its first institutional round of funding led by Sequoia India. MassMutual Ventures Southeast Asia also participated in the round.
Founded in 2016 by Prashant Warier and Dr. Pooja Rao, the company is currently present in over 20 countries and claims to have touched over 600,000 lives. It uses AI developed on a database of seven million scans to provide accurate interpretations of radiology scans within seconds.
The Mumbai-headquartered company said it would use the fresh funds to expand geographically, expand product portfolio and support regulatory clearances.
"This funding round will allow us to further invest into R&D (research and development) and to expand the reach of our solutions, accelerating our mission of delivering accessible and affordable healthcare to every human being," chief executive officer Warier said in a statement.
Why Qure
With the doctor-patient ratio low across the world, especially in the case of specialized practitioners such as radiologists, not all patients receive accurate and timely diagnosis. That's the problem Qure.ai is trying to solve.
The company's algorithms can automatically detect clinically relevant abnormal findings and highlight the abnormal areas from X-rays, CT Scans and MRIs in seconds. The tech led approach allows physicians to spend more time with patients and understand the case/symptoms, communicate the diagnosis better, while determining and discussing customized treatment plans.
"We use technology to reduce radiologists' effort when they read patient scans making diagnosis faster and more accurate, while keeping costs low, letting the machine do all the grunt work," the company said.
All That It Does
All of the company's products are CE certified, meaning that they conform with health, safety, and environmental protection standards in the European Economic Area.
Qure.ai said its head CT product is the only solution in the industry to detect every critical brain abnormality on a head CT while its chest X-ray automation and interpretation solution to help accurate interpretation of chest X-rays to detect tuberculosis, lung malignancies and medical emergencies like lung collapses and cardiac disorders.
"Medical imaging is one of the fields in healthcare where there is enough digitized data to turn the promise of AI into a reality. The sophistication of Qure.ai's algorithms and predictive analytics tools, coupled with their expert team of data scientists and physicians positions them very well versus their global competitors", said Anjana Sasidharan, Principal at Sequoia Capital India.
