South African e-health startup VitruvianMD has raised an eight-figure ZAR – so at least ZAR10 million (US$659,000) – funding round in order to scale its tech and launch more pilots.

Founded last year, VitruvianMD combines biomedical engineering and state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver affordable, high-accuracy diagnostic tools for medical laboratories, with a particular focus on servicing emerging markets.

“The core of our business is delivering AI-powered diagnostic software into under-resourced areas, and to date, we have built a platform that enables this in various fields of pathology. To further facilitate access, we have also developed a low-cost, high-quality camera that can retrofit any microscope instantly enabling digital tele-pathology,” Ifthakaar Shaik, VitruvianMD’s co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO), told Disrupt Africa.

“Our platform is robust enough to be utilized in any form of microscopy-based diagnostics, and is proved by our pilots in hematology, histopathology, fertility, and parasitology.”

VitruvianMD’s eight-figure ZAR funding round was led by the Singapore-based Verge Healthtech Fund and also features a host of angel investors.

It will be used to accelerate the development of the startup’s technology and to fund the roll-out of additional pilots.

“With this funding, the goal is to reach commercialization of at least one of our diagnostic modules within the next 18 months,” Shaik said.

Source