This story initially appeared in East-West Digital News, an international news resource covering the Russian innovation scene.
Skolkovo Innovation Center resident Intellogic has attracted RUR 100 mio ($1.5 mio) in a Series A round for its Botkin.AI startup that diagnoses cancer. At present, this technology can diagnose lung cancer at early stages with an accuracy of 95%.
Part of the funding came from two Russian funds: RBV Capital, which was created in 2014 by Russian state fund-of-funds RVC and Russian high-tech pharmaceutical company R-Pharm; and Orbita, a fund launched last year by Russian state atomic energy corporation Rosatom.
Also participating in the round were the startup’s early investors Russian venture fund Primer Capital, which belongs to Russian billionaire Aleksey Repik, and Russian direct investment fund Expocapital, which is managed by Alfa Capital, the financial arm of the Russian Alfa Group.
Nowadays, about three million chest plate images are produced in Russia every year, allowing to recognize about 60K cases of lung cancer. Botkin.AI employs artificial intelligence to diagnose cancer at early stages and assess the risk of its development. With this capital injection, Intellogic hopes to bring Botkin.AI technology even further to be able to diagnose cancer in 50% more of the cases after the processing of images received through computer tomography, digital radiography, and mammography.
In a pilot project, Botkin.AI analyzed 1,500 cases and was able to diagnose lung cancer in 15 patients who had been overlooked by human doctors.
According to Botkin.AI founder Sergey Sorokin, it only takes from several seconds to a few minutes for the patented Botkin.AI technology to analyze the images and diagnose lung cancer and pneumonia with extreme accuracy.
RBV Capital CEO and managing partner Aleksey Konov says the Botkin.AI technology is on par with leading international diagnostic software.
Intellogic plans to use the allocated funding for marketing purposes and expanding its range of diagnosable types of pathologies.