Flipkart founders, Accel Partners back med-tech startup SigTuple

Medical-technology startup SigTuple Technologies Pvt Ltd has raised seed funding from Flipkart founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, venture capital firm Accel Partners and other angel investors, the company said without disclosing the amount.

The Bangalore-based company was founded in 2015 by Tathagato Rai Dastidar, Rohit Kumar Pandey and Apurv Anand, who all previously worked at Big Data Labs of American Express. It builds cloud-based solutions for medical diagnosis using artificial intelligence techniques and has tied up with medical institutions to get data for the analysis.

"Artificial intelligence is going to change the way healthcare delivery works today. It will play a big role in improving the efficiency, accuracy and outreach of medical services," the company cited Sachin Bansal as saying in a statement.

The company is also focusing on automated analysis of medical images, for which its product Shonit is in advanced stages of development. Shonit is a solution for automatically analysing images of blood captured through a microscope. It performs analysis such as white blood cells differential count and detects different types of anaemia, parasitic infections like malaria and different forms of leukaemia.

"Shonit… can provide screening services for various disorders diagnosed through blood. A single pathologist can review analysis reports from multiple collection centers through our web-based interface, without the physical samples having to be shipped to a central testing facility," the company said.

Apart from blood sample analysis, the company plans to enter into other application areas of pathology and radiology.

The company also counts former Biocon executive Nirupa Bareja and Amazon Lab126 executive Debanjan Mukherjee among investors.

The Flipkart founders have invested in several startups over the past couple of years. In July last year, the duo invested in medical-technology startup Wrig Nanosystems. They also backed former Housing.com CEO Rahul Yadav's new venture, Intelligent Interfaces, late last year.

Accel Partners had raised $305 million (Rs 1,900 crore) for its Accel India IV fund last year. It has also invested in healthcare startups such as Portea Medical and CureJoy.

In the med-tech segment, Bangalore-based Remidio Innovative Solutions Pvt Ltd secured Series B funding last month.