Accel and IDG Ventures Team Up for Smart Healthcare Solutions for India By leading a Series B round for healthcare startup SigTuple
By Rahul R
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With healthcare in India showing enormous potential for growth, a relatively young startup which uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine Learning (ML) to analyse people's vital samples and make diagnosis smarter and more reachable, has now secured its biggest investment in the form of a Series B led by Accel Partners and IDG Ventures. This healthcare venture, SigTuple also has its own smart hardware for pathological analysis which it terms as low-cost.
Decoding SigTuple's funding journey
The Most important thing is that SigTuple's latest Series B venture capital (VC) fund raising amounts to USD 19 Million which takes its total capital raised to nearly USD 25 Million. Accel and IDG Ventures led this round, followed by the likes of Pi Ventures, Axilor, Binny Bansal, Venture Highway, Endiya Partners, and Trifecta Capital.
Prior to the latest fundraising, SigTuple had raised Series A in February 2017 from as many as 11 venture capitalists. The startup's seed funding was completed a year prior.
As far as venture capital investments are concerned, the latest involvement by Accel and IDG once again substantiate the fact that catering to societal causes through smart solutions is the numero-uno priority within even investors' minds. Also, with the latest investments, SigTuple could do well to further distribution and even conduct R&D whilst expanding its solutions across markets in India.
Why Accel's and IDG's involvement is best for smart healthcare in India?
The latest Series B VC fundraising by SigTuple is important considering the involvement of Accel and IDG Ventures; at a time when there are actually smart solutions either in the pre-launch or soft launch (with a significant minority solutions fully launched) in India.
Also, considering the fact that healthcare represents a big opportunity to cater to the vast majority through enabling smart solutions driven by disruptive technology viz. Internet-of-Things (IoT), AI, ML, BlockChain, Deep Learning, and more; the imminent future is all set to turn smarter.
"When we invested in the seed round in SigTuple back in 2015, the thesis was around looking at the large gaps that exist in diagnostics - accessibility, affordability and accuracy," informs Barath Shankar Subramanian of Accel Partners.
When smart solutions are integrated within Indian healthcare, quality facilities could also be more accessible; both from a business as well as consumer point of view. With investors now leading the next-gen change in smart healthcare, the number of qualitative startups developing solutions for the sector could also get potentially amplified.
"There is a tremendous opportunity to make healthcare accessible, affordable and accurate. Year after year our confidence to transform the healthcare delivery has increased. We are excited about the future as we are gearing up to take our solutions and services to the larger population," states Rohit Kumar Pandey who is Co-Founder and CEO at SigTuple.
"Global Healthcare is on the cusp of a big data-driven revolution. I believe that India will play a major role in that through the efforts of Startups like SigTuple. It is heartening to see their progress as they get ready to take a plunge on the world stage," adds Binny Bansal.
