Healthtech startup Niramai has secured funds around $6-7 million in a funding round. The round was led by existing investors Pi Ventures, Axilor, Ankur Capital and Flipkart cofounder Binny Bansal.
Niramai Health Analytix is building an artificial intelligence (AI)-based tool for a non-invasive, non-touch, non-radiation approach to detect breast cancer. The technology, called Thermalytix, helps remove the technological, logistical and cost barriers for breast cancer screening among women.
Niramai was founded in 2016 by Geetha Manjunath, who has 25 years of experience in areas such as data analytics, machine-learning and cloud computing, and Nidhi Mathur, with experience in business planning, strategy and product management. Both the cofounders had previously worked with Xerox Research Center and Hewlett Packard Labs.
The firm’s portable technology uses big data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine-learning for early and accurate breast cancer screening. It is also low cost, making it an affordable choice for mass screening of rural population.
“The nature of healthcare makes it very suitable for AI,” said Sumit Goel, partner, healthcare at KPMG India. “We are witnessing an increasing number of applications in areas of medical imaging, robotic surgery, chronic care and virtual consultation. The trend is likely to accelerate with more end-use cases being explored and successfully commercialized,” he added.
Also, the company claims to have screened more than 3,000 women and had earlier shared plans of looking to expand across the country through healthcare partners, as well as in a couple of Asian markets by 2019. The company at present has deployments in diagnostic centres/hospitals across three states — Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Telangana.
Niramai saw revenues of Rs 43 lakh in FY17-18. Several AI-based companies in healthcare in India have received funding, such as Sigtuple, in which both Binny and Sachin Bansal have also invested, as well as Healthi, Qure.AI, and Predible Health.