Sequoia India Surge backs health tech startup RedBrick AI with $4.6 million funding TechCrunch

medical technology startups red brick AI raised $4.6 million in a funding round led by Sequoia India and Southeast Asia’s Surge as it plans to expand the market for its medical image annotation solution.

Artificial intelligence has become ubiquitous in clinical diagnosis. But researchers need a lot of initial time to prepare data for training AI systems. The training also requires hundreds of annotated medical images and thousands of hours of annotation by clinicians. Delaware-based SaaS startup, which has an Indian subsidiary in Pune, is solving that problem with semi-automated and automated annotation tools.

RedBrick AI Co-Founder and CEO Shivam Sharma says the startup makes annotation generation up to 60% faster using a configurable workflow system that works with medical images. such as CT scan, X-ray, magnetic resonance imaging and ultrasound.

“We find ourselves building the foundation layer of artificial intelligence in healthcare. Going forward, we want to help teams with everything from data preparation to FDA algorithmic clearance,” Sharma said in an interview with TechCrunch.

Founded in 2021 by Sharma and Derek Lukacs, former SpaceX Hyperloop engineer (who holds the position of CTO), RedBrick AI provides dedicated annotation tools accessible through a web browser and is integrated in a customer’s existing data storage systems, such as AWS, Google Cloud Platform, and Azure. For annotating complex 3D medical images, it also has semi-automatic tools.

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RedBrick AI provides additional APIs that machine learning engineers can integrate with their clinical data warehousing and cloud solutions, including hospital enterprise PACS servers.

“Clinicians simply log into their browser and the workflow aspect of it is all automated,” says Sharma.

Once correctly annotated, images can be used for faster and more detailed diagnoses. Annotated images can also be used by surgical robots and for automated cancer detection.

RedBrick AI has a seven-member team mainly in India, although the startup is mainly focused on the US and Europe to market its tools. The startup also sees 99% of the competition coming from open source tools, followed by in-house tools developed by companies to address their specific requirements.

RedBrick AI’s initial customer base includes German biotech startup Orbem, Canadian cancer and disease screening platform Prenuvo, and a Boston-based network of nonprofit doctors and hospitals. Mass General Brigham and Maharashtra’s Deeptek Radiology AI platform.

The all-capital seed round also featured Y Combinator and angel investors. Before this round, the startup was named among Y Combinator’s Winter 2022 Cohort dominated by 32 Indian startups.

Sharma said RedBrick AI plans to use the fund to go beyond its current customer base and reach businesses. It also plans to hire new engineers to expand its dedicated toolkit.