Accel and IDG lead $19 Mn Series B round in healthtech startup SigTuple

Artificial Intelligence-based health tech startup SigTuple has raised $19 million in its Series B round led by Accel Partners and IDG Ventures. Existing investors of the Bengaluru-based startup such as Endiya Partners, pi Ventures, Binny Bansal along with their new investors VH Capital, Axilor Ventures and Trifecta Capital, also participated in the round.

The fresh funds will be allocated for research and development, conducting clinical trials, products distribution and expanding its footprint into other markets. Besides, the startup is looking for a sales and support teams as well.

Founded in April 2015 by Rohit Kumar Pandey, Tathagato Rai Dastidar, and Apurv Anand, SigTuple has built hardware and software using artificial intelligence technology to digitize pathological tests.

For instance, it has developed a low-cost system for scanning blood, urine and semen samples, which uses AI to recognise microscopic images of blood cells. Using its own software, the machine can recognise blood samples to quantify normal and abnormal cells and to track sperm cells.

The company has already done three commercial deployments of the technology and is in the process of closing another five by the end of this month. It is also planning a soft commercial launch of its blood analyser and testing tool in India and a beta solution for retinal scan analysis in the next quarter.

SigTuple had earlier raised $6.5 million (excluding the current round) from several investors including a $5.8 million Series A round closed in February 2017 and $740K seed fund led by Sachin Bansal, Binny Bansal, and Accel in October 2015.

Operating on a hub-and-spoke model, SigTuple generates revenue by selling the hardware machine and charging per report.

The development was first reported by Mint.