[Funding alert] Qure.ai raises $16M funding led by Sequoia India and MassMutual Ventures Southeast Asia

qure.ai, a Mumbai-based healthcare AI startup, on Thursday announced that it has raised $16 million in funding led by Sequoia India and was supported by MassMutual Ventures Southeast Asia. The funds will primarily be used to expand Qure.ai's product portfolio, geographical expansion, and regulatory clearances.

Speaking of its growth and funding, Prashant Warier, Co-founder and CEO, Qure.ai, in a press statement said,

"We are proud to have taken our solutions beyond the research stage to actually impacting patient lives across more than 200 locations in 20 countries. Our products ensure that life-saving treatments can be delivered to patients, even in remote locations, in a fraction of the time required for traditional scan interpretation. This funding round will allow us to further invest in R&D and to expand the reach of our solutions, accelerating our mission of delivering accessible and affordable healthcare to every human being."

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Founded in 2016 by Prashant and Pooja Rao, Qure.ai has impacted over 600,000 lives. Using AI on a database of over seven million scans, the platform claims to provide fast and accurate interpretations of radiology scans within seconds, reducing time to treatment in the critical moments of care. 

The startup's solutions are all CE certified. Qure.ai's head CT product claims to detect every critical brain abnormality in a head CT scan, including five types of intracranial haemorrhages, cranial fractures, infarcts, midline shift, and mass effect (for tumour detection).

Speaking on the funding, Anjana Sasidharan, Principal at Sequoia Capital India LLP, said,

"Medical imaging is one of the fields in healthcare where there is enough digitised data to turn the promise of AI into a reality. The sophistication of Qure.ai’s algorithms and predictive analytics tools, coupled with its expert team of data scientists and physicians, positions the startup very well versus its global competitors. What sets it apart is its ability to deploy commercially at scale across multiple countries; something many others have failed to do as strong algorithms don’t always translate to robust commercial products.”

Qure.ai’s chest X-ray automation and interpretation solution (qXR) accurately interprets chest X-rays to help automatically generate X-ray interpretation reports, detect tuberculosis (one of the world’s leading infectious killers), chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, lung malignancies, and medical emergencies like lung collapses and cardiac disorders. 

Ryan Collins, Managing Director, MassMutual Ventures SEA, said, “We are excited to partner with Qure.ai, improving access, efficacy, and efficiency in clinical care. There are very few companies in this category who have achieved this level of both academic and real-world validation, and Qure.ai is leading across multiple use-cases and modalities."

The startup has been incubated by Fractal, an AI and analytics leader, serving Fortune 100 companies.

Srikanth Velamakanni, Co-Founder of Fractal and Chairman, Qure.ai added, “Conceptualising and incubating Qure.ai has been a matter of great satisfaction and pride for us. Prashant and Pooja have assembled a brilliant team that's committed to making healthcare accessible and affordable through AI. I am especially excited about the open research approach that Qure.ai has adopted and its focus on real-world validation.”

(Edited by Suman Singh)