Forestay Capital has added to its growing portfolio by leading the funding round that has just raised $18 million for icometrix, the global expert in brain imaging Artificial Intelligence solutions. Investing alongside Forestay are Optum Ventures and existing investor, Capricorn Venture Partners.
icometrix’s icobrain software, which is both CE-marked and FDA-cleared, extracts clinically meaningful information from brain MRI and CT scans of patients with neurological disorders, such as Multiple Sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, and traumatic brain injury. The icobrain AI solutions are already used in more than 100 hospitals and imaging center networks worldwide, and this number is increasing fast. In addition,four out of the Top Five pharmaceutical companies are using icobrain in their studies. Furthermore, Affidea, Waypoint’s healthcare business, recently announced its first AI partnership with the company.
“With icobrain, medical images can be read faster, more consistently and in a more personalized fashion by quantifying the volume of brain structures and abnormalities.” said Wim Van Hecke, CEO of icometrix. “One in three people will suffer from a brain disorder, often due to a chronic disease, leading to an immense burden for patients, friends, families, caregivers and society. Brain scans play a central role in patient diagnosis and monitoring, creating a huge need for objective and patient-specific evaluation of MRI and CT brain scan images with tools like icobrain.”
Forestay’s Fred Wohlwend said of the investment that the fund he heads “is delighted to partner with icometrix’s management and to help drive forward its growing success story. This technology transforms the way we diagnose, monitor and treat people with brain disorders and we can see its immense potential to improve neurological diagnostics, making a complex process quicker and more effective for each individual patient. Our own investor, the Waypoint Capital group, has a deep heritage in the health care sector and also owns Affidea, the largest imaging centre network in Europe, which has partnered with icometrix to develop the standardisation protocols for its large-scale deployment across Europe. This gives us great confidence in its future value potential.”
“We strongly believe in the power of data to help diagnose, monitor and treat neurological disorders,” said Heather Roxborough, Partner at Optum Ventures. “By putting icometrix’s innovative AI brain imaging solutions in the hands of clinicians and radiologists worldwide, we can help improve the lives of millions of people with brain disorders.”
Wim Van Hecke concluded: “This investment is an important milestone for icometrix. The partnership with Forestay Capital, Capricorn Venture Partners and Optum Ventures will enable icometrix to launch new products for patients with stroke, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, brain tumors, etc., and help people with brain disorders worldwide.”
