These startups are using AI to make healthcare convenient and low-cost

Thursday March 29, 2018 , 5 min Read

While the bogey of artificial intelligence (AI) taking over jobs has been let loose for some time now, the fact is, it is anything but.

Healthcare eats up a lot of an average family's budget.

AI and big data are disrupting how healthcare works not only in the world but in India too. In a recent interaction with Nidhi Mathur of Niramai, which incidentally has been winning most of the accolades for its machine learning (ML) technology, she said none of the doctors that she has met have ever rued the fact that AI and ML will take away their jobs. If anything, they are happy that they can do so much more with this new technology that many startups in the healthtech are deploying to make healthcare not only easy and convenient but also low cost.

And in a country like India that is saying a lot, considering the country’s consistently poor performance in healthcare, along with one of the lowest doctor-patient ratios in the world.

A report released by the government recently focuses on sectors where AI can be most beneficial, and no points for guessing that one of them is healthcare.

AI not only helps organise electronic medical records, but advanced genetic sequencing is shifting the focus to preventive healthcare. Today, AI can help prevent heart attacks and diagnose diseases and is opening up a whole new landscape that was unthinkable a few years ago.

Here are a few startups that are using AI to disrupt the healthcare space.

Artelus

Location: Bengaluru

Problem it solves: Artelus offers advanced screening tools to enable overburdened healthcare professionals to service the increasing patient load with accurate diagnosis and preventative care.

Founders: Pradeep Walia, Lalit Pant, Raja Rajeshwari

Year it was founded: 2015

Investors: NA

Funding raised: NA

Aindra

Location: Bengaluru

Problem it solves: AI-powered medtech company

Founders: Adarsh Natarajan

Year it was funded: 2014

Investors: NA

Funding raised: NA

Advenio Technosys

Location: Chandigarh

Problem it solves: Clinical imaging solution provider

Founders: Mausumi Acharyya

Year it was funded: 2010

Investors: Kalaari Capital

Funding raised: Pre-Series A $100,000 in 2016

Healthmir

Location: New Delhi

Problem it solves: AI-driven health content startup

Founders: Abhash Kumar, Rohit Gupta, Gitesh Gupta, Vijay Srivastava, Praneet Kumar

Year it was founded: 2015

Investors: Nimit Panigrahi

Funding raised: Undisclosed Pre-Series A in 2017

Healthi

Location: Bengaluru

Problem it solves: Helps make smart choice for diagnostics and preventive health

Founders: Rekuram Varadharaj, Krishna Ulagaratchagan

Year it was funded: 2014

Investors: Montane Ventures

Funding raised: $3,100,000 in February, 2018

1 MG

Location: Gurgaon

Problem it solves: Ecommerce healthcare company

Founders: Sameer Maheshwari, Prashanth Tandon, Gaurav Agarwal

Year it was funded: 2015

Investors: HBM Healthcare Investments, Sequoia India, Maverick Capital Ventures, Omidyar Network, Kae Capital, Deep Kalra

Funding raised: Series A $6,000,000 in April, 2015; Series B 15,000,000 in April, 2016; Series C $15,000,000 in July, 2017

Niramai

Location: Bengaluru

Problem it solves: Non-invasive, low-cost breast cancer screening startup

Founders: Geetha Manjunath, Nidhi Mathur

Year it was funded: 2016

Investors: pi Ventures, Ankur Capital, Axilor Ventures, 500 Startups, Binny Bansal

Funding raised: Pre-Series A undisclosed amount in April, 2017

Orbuculum

Location: Chennai

Problem it solves: Uses AI on genomic data to predict the likelihood of chronic diseases like cancer and diabetes.

Founders: Pranav Gangwal

Year it was funded: 2016

Investors: NA

Funding raised: NA

Predible Health

Location: Bengaluru

Problem it solves: Builds AI-powered apps that interpret medical scans

Founders: Suthirth Vaidya, Abhijith Chunduru, Deepak Mohan

Year it was founded: 2016

Investors: Unitus Seed Fund

Funding raised: Pre-Series A undisclosed in March, 2018

Qure.Ai

Location: Mumbai

Problem it solves: Uses cutting-edge deep learning technology to help diagnose disease and recommend personalised treatment plans from healthcare imaging data.

Founders: Pooja Rao, Prashant Warier

Year it was founded: 2016

Investors: NA

Funding raised: NA

QorQL

Location: Noida

Problem it solves: QorQl is solving problems plaguing healthcare by applying advances in AI and big data

Founders: Sanjay Singh, Dr Shalini Singh

Year it was founded: 2015

Investors: Digital payments platform Paytm

Funding raised: Pre-Series A undisclosed in April, 2017

Spectral Insights

Location: Bengaluru

Problem it solves: Spectral Insights has built a full vertical integrated solution for pathology labs and hospitals

Founders: Prasanth Perugupalli , Sumit Kumar Nath, Raghubansh Gupta, Dipankar Das, Suhash Gerald

Year it was founded: 2016

Investors: NA

Funding raised: NA

SigTuple

Location: Bengaluru

Problem it solves: It offers intelligent screening solutions for pathology labs through digitisaton of pathological slide images and cloud-based image processing used for diagnosis. According to CEO Rohit Kumar Pandey, “Our solutions can help doctors and medical lab technicians with visual recognition and analysis, and aid them to make more accurate decisions faster. This will help doctors spend time in places where they can add more value.”

Founders: Tathagato Rai Dastidar, Rohit Kumar Pandey, Apurv Anand

Year it was founded: 2015

Investors: Accel Partners, IDG Ventures, Endiya Partners, pi Ventures, VH Capital, Axilor Partners, Sachin Bansal, Binny Bansal, Amit Singhal

Funding raised: Pre-Series A undisclosed in February, 2016; Series A $5,800,000 in February, 2017

Ten3T

Location: Bengaluru

Problem it solves: Medical-grade wearable device startup

Founders: Dr Sudhir Borgonha, Rahul Shingrani, Prasad Bhat

Year it was founded: 2014

Investors: pi Ventures, V. Krishna Prasad, Bhupen Shah

Funding raised: Pre-Series A undisclosed round in December, 2016

Touchkin

Location: Bengaluru

Problem it solves: Its chatbot, Wysa, has been developed in collaboration with AI, community health experts and neuroscientists from Columbia and Cambridge universities.

Founders: Jo Aggarwal, Ramakant Vempati

Year it was founded: 2015

Investors: Alok Mittal, Amit Gupta, Anuj Srivastava, Himanshu Aggarwal, Raghunandan G, Puneet Agarwal

Funding raised: Pre-Series A $400,000 in March, 2016, another pre-Series A $1,300,000 in August, 2017.