Mendaera's $73m raise heads digital financings

Recent financings in the digital health sector include a $73 million round for artificial intelligence-enabled robotics player Mendaera, with Qure.ai, VieCure, Rippl, and Univa Health also raising money.

Silicon Valley start-up Mendaera has earmarked the Series B funding to complete the development of its handheld robotics, medical imaging, and AI platform, which is intended for use in commonplace medical procedures like taking biopsies, organ and vascular access, and pain management.

The company claims its technology is treading new ground in medical robotics, taking it out of the operating theatre and into routine clinical care. It aims to make it available for "critical and ubiquitous medical procedures," hopefully improving patient experiences and saving healthcare systems money.

The round was led by Threshold Ventures, with participation from investors including Lux Capital, PFM Health Sciences, and Fred Moll, the founder of Intuitive Surgical and Auris Health.

Mumbai, India-based radiology AI company Qure.ai, which was founded in 2016, will use a $65 million cash injection to expand into the US and other international markets with its suite of AI tools used to diagnose illnesses including lung cancer and stroke from medical images, as well as to continue investment in its AI models and potentially seek acquisitions.

Venture capital firms Lightspeed 360 One Asset led the financing, which was also joined by new investors Merck Global Health Innovation Fund and Kae Capital, and existing backers including Novo Holdings, Health Quad, and TeamFund.

VieCure has completed a $45 million financing, led by Northpond Ventures, that will go towards scaling up its commercial operations behind Halo, an AI-enabled community oncology care software platform built around electronic health records and clinical decision support.

Halo is designed to help clinicians deploy treatment plans for patients, providing a way to handle the increasingly large amount of data they must consider, including multi-omics, that underpins precision oncology. The platform is already in daily use by around 18,000 patients and their healthcare workers and the objective is to make it available nationally to community cancer centres.

The Colorado, US-based start-up also said that it has named former DNAnexus chief executive and Baxter Labs executive Richard Daly as its chairman.

Virtual dementia care start-up Rippl has attracted investment worth $23 million from a team of investors led by Tina Hoang-To of Kin Ventures and featuring ARCH Ventures, General Catalyst, Google Ventures, F-Prime, Mass General Brigham Ventures, and 1843 Capital.

The Seattle, Washington company is focused on supporting people with dementia, anxiety, and depression in the community and keeping them out of hospital – and particularly the emergency room – for as long as possible. A shortage in geriatric psychiatrists is making emergency care a first port of call for many patients with these conditions in the US, according to Rippl.

Its platform is already available to patients in Illinois, Missouri, Texas, and Washington state, and provides virtual access to clinicians, counselling options, and support in navigating care and resources. The next markets to be targeted will be California, Florida, and Arizona, while some of the money is set aside to layer in AI capabilities that Rippl acquired via its purchase of Kinto in April.

UK start-up Univa Health has raised £1 million ($1.3 million) in pre-seed financing for its personalised digital care platform, which aims to transform how healthcare systems 'manage, monitor, and treat' eating disorders with programmes that are personalised to patients.

The funding, led by Germany's YZR Capital and backed by Austria-based Calm/Storm Ventures, will in part go towards a clinical trial of the platform that will be carried out in collaboration with the NHS in anticipation of a formal launch next year. The company says that hospital admissions for eating disorders have surged by 84% in the UK and 121% in the US.

The new company is co-founded and led by Rich Andrews, who was behind the formation of Healios, which operates a mental health and neurodevelopmental digital clinic in the UK, as well as in the US under the Meliora Health brand.