In Startup50 2017:  Backed by a string of notable investors including Accel, IDG and Flipkart’s Sachin and Binny Bansal, SigTuple’s flagship solution, Manthana, uses AI models to analyse medical data for various diagnostics processes. While the current solution is designed for peripheral blood smear analysis, the company is building a portfolio of solutions for blood, urine, semen, retinal and chest x-ray analysis.

Founders: Rohit Kumar Pandey, Apurv Anand and Tathagato Rai Dastidar

Disruptive Technology

Started in 2015, the company raised US $6.54 million to develop smart disease screenings solutions that are powered by advancements in artificial intelligence, image processing and cloud computing. The products are in beta trial, for which 55 small, medium and large sized chains have signed up to start the beta-cum-commercial trial.

The company follows a subscription-based model where the labs/hospitals have to pay only for the report generated on the cloud.

Differentiators
Sigtuple solution doesn’t require any reagents. The device is a digital scanner which digitises the biological sample and sends the digitised biological sample to its cloud-based AI platform. The AI algorithms on the cloud analyses the digital sample and generates a report on the cloud. This report not only has numbers but supporting visual evidence, which enables a pathologist to review and approve the report on their handheld device without needing the blood sample/slide and a microscope.

Since the device is just a digital scanner, the same device can be used for multiple tests, only the AI algorithm on the cloud varies for different tests. It enables the lab to maintain a hub and spoke model where the technicians in the spoke can operate the device and the reporting can be done by medical experts in the hub. Addition of any new features requires a change in the cloud and not the hardware. This enables the new features to be made available to the installed devices in a fraction of minutes.

The cost of the device is 1/10th of the lowest cost device available in the market. Since the entire analysis is happening digitally and the first hand report is generated by the AI algorithm, it reduces the turnaround time.

There are 200,000 labs/collection centres in India being served by 20,000 pathologists. A big part of the population is underserved specially the rural India. The SigTuple solution connects the patients in rural India to connect with medical experts in urban India without the patient having to travel or the biological sample to be shipped.

Quick Facts:

• Number of employees: 40
• 55 small, medium and large sized chains have signed up for starting the beta-cum-commercial trial:
• Revenue target: US $ 100K by end of this year and US $ 1-1.5 million in FY 2018
• Funds Raised : US$ 6.54 million from Accel, IDG and Flipkart’s Sachin and Binny Bansal