SigTuple Raises Rs 38.6 cr in Series A funding to develop disease screening solutions

Sigtuple, a startup revolutionising global healthcare space through data driven intelligence, has raised $5.8mn in Series A funding led by Accel Partners with participation from IDG Ventures, Endiya Partners, pi Ventures, VH Capital and Axilor Partners and other prominent investors including Sachin Bansal, Binny Bansal, Amit Singhal (SVP Engineering, Uber and Ex-SVP, Google Search). The company had raised $740,000 in October 2015 from Sachin Bansal, Binny Bansal, Accel Partners, Ashok Bareja, Dr. Nirupa Bareja and Debanjan Mukherjee. SigTuple will use the latest round of funding to expand the team, bullet-proof the platform and the product for user adoption followed by commercials, and regulatory clearances for global markets.

SigTuple is solving some of the most advanced research problems arising out of an unprecedented application of recent advances in AI to the medical domain. From crunching through microscopy images of blood to quantify normal and abnormal blood cells, to tracking sperm cells in microscopy videos, to localizing pathologies in retinal scan images, we are at the bleeding edge of things. Research in core AI, computer vision and extreme platform engineering are an integral part of our journey.

SigTuple’s solutions will allow labs and hospitals to scale by implementing a hub and spoke model where the medical experts can operate from hub and devices can be installed in spokes. The solution will be available at a very affordable price and will enable labs to adopt technology without changing the hardware. It will improve the efficiency of medical experts by automating painful and fatigue driven visual medical analysis process.

The founders, Rohit, Apurv and Tathagato, are all technology industry veterans, with specialization in big data, machine learning, image processing and building large scale enterprise platforms.

Rohit Kumar Pandey, Co-founder and CEO, SigTuple, says, “Our goal is to develop intelligent, scalable and affordable disease screening solutions which can empower medical experts and facilitate quality healthcare delivery to the masses. Our initial focus is on the solutions for the screening tests so that we can positively impact a larger population not only in India but globally”.

Barath Shankar Subramanian, Accel Partners, adds, “When we evaluate opportunities, one of the most important things we look at is the fit between the founders and the business opportunity. In this case, the AI/ML part of the business is the core and the background of the founders was a great fit. We believe that they have a well thought through approach to the problem and hence we decided to back them”.

“SigTuple is one of those home-grown companies which has potential to compete globally. I strongly believe that the products they are developing will revolutionise healthcare delivery not only in India but globally”, says Binny Bansal Group CEO, Flipkart.

The core product of the company is “Manthana” – a continuous learning platform powered by AI for healthcare. The name is coined from “Samudra Manthana” – an important event in Indian mythology. The platform is used to churn data to generate intelligence.

Manthana allows SigTuple to ingest visual medical data from different devices and build a longitudinal memory. It has capability to train, validate and execute AI and ML powered models to classify various objects of interest, detect diseases and compute the metrics for reporting. The metrics provided by the platform are supported by visual evidence which eliminates the need of the medical expert to sit next to the patient, medical device or biological sample.

The platform also exposes an interface for the medical experts to get feedback and annotations which enables continuous learning with new and changing visual medical data.

Currently, SigTuple is using Manthana to provide solutions for automated analysis of peripheral blood smear, urine and semen sample, retinal scans and chest x-rays.

The solution for blood, Shonit™, has already undergone 3 clinical trials and will be soon available for user adoption followed by commercials. Other solutions are in advance stages of development.

SigTuple is working with large hospitals and labs and a group of medical experts in various fields to develop these solutions.

They have filed half a dozen patents and published in medical and computer science journals.