SigTuple raises $19 million from Accel, IDG, others

Bengaluru: Bengaluru-based health technology start-up SigTuple has raised $19 million in its Series B round led by Accel Partners and IDG Ventures, the company said on Tuesday.

Existing investors Endiya Partners, pi Ventures and Binny Bansal, besides new investors VH Capital, Axilor Ventures and Trifecta Capital, also participated in the round.

The start-up’s $5.8 million Series A round closed in February 2017. Founded in April 2015 by Rohit Kumar Pandey, Tathagato Rai Dastidar and Apurv Anand, SigTuple has so far raised $6.5 million from several investors.

The company has used artificial intelligence to develop hardware and software to digitise pathological tests for hospitals and clinics. SigTuple will use the latest round of funding to enhance assembly and distribution of its products, research and development of new solutions, conducting clinical trials and expanding into other markets.

It has developed a low-cost system for scanning blood, urine and semen samples, which used 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. It can also be used to create digital test records, making it accessible to any pathologist at any given location.

While raising its Series A round in early 2017, the company had said that it used pathology tests and reports data from 15 labs and hospitals in Bengaluru to build the technology.

SigTuple is planning a soft commercial launch of its blood analyser and testing tool in India, although a definite timeline was not mentioned in the statement. It is also planning to launch a beta solution for retinal scan analysis in the next quarter

“There is a tremendous opportunity to make healthcare accessible, affordable and accurate. Year after year our confidence to transform 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,” said Pandey, the chief executive at SigTuple, in a statement.

“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. Today, Sigtuple has come a long way in addressing all those challenges by effectively combining AI and innovation around the hardware and software,” added Barath Shankar Subramanian of Accel Partners.