Harrison.ai has announced it has raised AU$129 million (USD$97 million) in one of Australia’s largest-ever Series B funding rounds.
The Series B funding round, led by existing investor Horizons Ventures, featured new equity investment from Sonic Healthcare and I-MED Radiology Network, alongside existing investors Blackbird Ventures and Skip Capital. It brings the total raised by Harrison.ai within the past two years to AU$158 million (USD$118 million).
Harrison.ai also announced a new partnership with Sonic Healthcare.
Harrison.ai will use the new capital to rapidly expand its team of AI data scientists and engineers, while expanding into new areas of healthcare with global clinical partners.
Capacity in many areas of clinical diagnosis and treatment are under strain due to ongoing increases in healthcare demand contrasted with skills shortages and pandemic-related backlogs in clinical demand. Developed healthcare systems such as the United Kingdom (UK) and United States (US) face massive shortages in skilled radiologists and clinicians, with significantly more staff required to meet surging demand for diagnosis. Despite this shortage, there is a stark disparity to other markets — the US has approximately 11 radiologists per 100,000 people compared to just 0.35 radiologists per 100,000 people in Kenya.
This increased demand for equitable, accurate and effective healthcare delivery requires complementary systems like Artificial Intelligence (AI) to provide human-aided diagnosis and help relieve some of this disparity.
Harrison.ai and I-MED Radiology partnered to form Annalise.ai in early 2020 to develop solutions across radiology modalities. Annalise.ai’s first product, an AI clinical decision-support solution for Chest X-Rays, is already in use by more than 350 radiologists each day in Australia and rolling out to hundreds more. The partnership saw Annalise.ai co-research, develop and commercialise the solution within 18 months. The solution, which is capable of detecting 124 findings, was recently featured in peer-reviewed publication the Lancet Digital Health journal.
Dr Aengus Tran, Co-Founder and CEO of Harrison.ai, said: “Delivering equitable, effective and accurate healthcare to more people is a critical part of our mission at Harrison.ai, and as we emerge from the pandemic that mission is more important than ever. With our model and methodology now proven across multiple clinical areas, we are in a position to expand to new clinical areas and deliver on our mission with the support of our investors and partners.”
Chris Liu from Horizons Ventures, said: “Harrison.ai‘s distinct approach to AI healthcare has enabled the team to commercialise market leading solutions at record pace with its partners. We look forward to working closely with the team and our partners to help augment the capacity of healthcare systems globally.”
NEW SONIC HEALTHCARE JOINT VENTURE
Globally, pathology faces an even more stark skills shortage, with the number of US pathologists decreasing 18% between 2007 and 2017 despite an increase in workload. Building comprehensive AI solutions for pathology will help scale the capacity of diagnostic care across the globe.
“Sonic Healthcare’s deep clinical experience and understanding combined with our proven AI methodologies will create a powerful new way to support clinicians to more effectively and efficiently diagnose patients in pathology,” Dr Tran said.
Dr Colin Goldschmidt, CEO of Sonic Healthcare, said: “The formation of a joint venture with Harrison.ai is an exciting moment in Sonic Healthcare’s progression as a healthcare company. Harrison.ai is a smart, agile, and medically led company with a proven track record in the healthcare AI space. The partnership with Sonic and our deep healthcare experience and global reach represents a synergistic union and a powerful force in healthcare AI.”
