[Funding Alert]: AI healthcare startup Dozee raises Rs 12.5 cr led by Prime Venture Partners, 3One4 Capital, YourNest

Bengaluru-based healthtech startup Dozee-- which has built a health monitoring device to curb the spread of coronavirus -- has raised Rs 12.5 crore in funding led by Prime Venture Partners,  YourNest Venture Capital, and 3one4 Capital. 

With this funding, Turtle Shell Technologies, the parent company of Dozee, is looking to expand its market reach, develop real-time vital signs monitoring on its device, and accelerate the adoption of its device, Dozee, which is a contactless, remote monitoring solution. The funds will also enable Dozee -- which is among the 11 deeptech startups selected in the 12th batch of Jio's startup programme JioGenNext -- to enhance product capabilities, complete certifications and approvals, and improve the user experience for physicians and patients.

Mudit Dandwate, CEO and Co-founder, Dozee said in a conversation with YourStory, 

“We have focussed on the core product and on building it ground up. We now are looking to go deeper into the market and expand across different geographies. We already have four patents pending for our technology, and we intend to get more approvals and apply for patents abroad.” 

Over the last five years, led by intense R&D, the healthtech startup's focus has been to hone Dozee as the most convenient, accurate, and cost-effective health monitor that can easily reach masses, he added.

Founded by IIT alumni, Mudit and Gaurav Parchani, Dozee was developed after research conducted with leading hospitals in Bengaluru like Sri Jayadeva Institute and Nimhans. The device tracks key vitals like respiration rate, heart rate, and oxygen saturation, and monitors stress recovery rate and sleep stages, with an estimated medical accurate rate of over 98.4 percent. 

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While the startup is currently applying Dozee to fight COVID-19, the core idea was to build and focus on chronic disorders, with a focus on taking care of high risk patients, Mudit explained.

During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, over 1,200 Dozees have been deployed in over 20 quarantine centres across eight states. Dozee has so far monitored over 4,000 COVID-19 patients in institutional settings, saving more than 6,000 nursing hours. 

With Dozee, hospitals can convert any bed into a step down ICU unit -- which provides an intermediate level of care between ICUs and the general wards -- as the product continuously monitors a patient’s cardiac and respiratory cycles and alerts caregivers about any abnormalities that maybe detected before it becomes critical.

Pranav Pai, Managing Partner, 3One4 Capital, said,

“Recent events have accelerated the need for real-time vitals sensing, home healthcare, and continuum care. Dozee has shown tremendous agility in this context to combine deep technology and healthcare expertise into a scalable and sustainable sensor and data platform in the form of their step down ICU system.”

Dozee works on a technology called Ballistocardiography (BCG), a non-invasive method that tracks vibrations from every heartbeat, respiration, and smallest of body movements.

The team has built a proprietary Advanced Health Intelligence System that extracts biomarkers and vital parameters from the noisy vibration data captured by the sensors. The AI system helps identify health deterioration through abnormalities across all vital parameters that Dozee measures. 

Sanjay Swamy, Managing Partner, Prime Venture Partners, said in a conversation with YourStory, 

“We all are going to move to continuous real-time monitoring not just for healthcare professionals but even those who are living away from their elderly parents. While wearables are one way of tracking and monitoring, they are not contactless and cannot measure everything. The best thing about Dozee is that it is non-intrusive.” 

Dozee is currently being used by close to 30 healthcare institutions such as Kauvery Hospital, ILS Kolkata, Kingsway Hospital, Ministry of Ayush, IGMC Nagpur, and Chengalpattu Medical College, among others. It is also being used directly in over 1,000 homes to monitor the health of different patients.

Dr. Vivek Mansingh, General Partner, YourNest, said,

“Today, healthcare is only serving the top one third of the world population. To democratise healthcare and make it available to everyone across the world, technology will play a critical role. Dozee is a deep tech startup from India that moves the needle in this direction."

"Using its proprietary sensing technology and advanced AI algorithms, Dozee not only can provide quality healthcare to millions of individuals, but also, by precisely monitoring the vitals of users at home and hospitals, can improve their health and avoid escalations by allowing for timely interventions,” he added.