Intron Health, a pioneering health tech startup that provides clinical speech recognition for over 200 accents spoken in underdeveloped nations, beginning with Africa, has raised $1.6 million in a pre-seed funding round.
With participation from Plug and Play Ventures, Jama Rift Ventures, Octopus Ventures, Africa Health Ventures, OpenseedVC, Pi Campus, Alumni Angel, and Baker Bridge Capital, Microtraction led the round. Angel investors from international businesses including Google, CLEAR Global, NYU, and Optum also contributed to the funding.
Intron was founded in 2020 with the goal of digitising healthcare. Tobi Olatunji, the company’s founder, realised early on that data entry was a major barrier to the adoption of electronic medical records.
The first clinical speech recognition platform in Africa was created by Intron, and it has an accuracy rate of up to 92% for medical terms with strong accents. This platform greatly accelerates the implementation of Electronic Health Records (EHR) and lessens administrative load for doctors in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and most recently, Uganda. It does this by enabling doctors to complete documentation seven times faster.
Speaking on the round, Tobi Olatunji, Founder and CEO of Intron Health stated, ‘Having worked as a doctor in Nigeria, I have experienced first-hand the pain points with trying to deliver quality healthcare amidst increasing patient numbers. We are excited about the adoption and growth we’ve seen over the past year, which shows we are addressing a significant need and providing a well overdue solution to a critical problem in the global south. We are not only improving efficiency but also enhancing health outcomes and positively impacting hospital finances. With the backing of prominent global investors who bring deep knowledge and expertise, we are looking forward to our next phase of growth.’
Beyond the realm of healthcare, Intron Health’s speech recognition technology is proving to be revolutionary, and the company is eager to investigate potential applications and prospects for the transformative potential of localised voice technology in and outside of Africa.
With the help of this funding, Intron Health will increase distribution, bolster its cloud-native and on-premises capabilities, and intensify its research. In order to assist product development and market expansion, the company will also boost its staff by hiring IT talent. This will help to drive continuing advancement and break down additional technological hurdles.
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