CARDIOMATICS: The Invisible Guardian of Your Heart

We have been increasingly engaging with intrepid founders cracking the code of better health and developing game-changing tools in the space. So we are excited about Cardiomatics (a provider of clinical-grade SaaS for heart care). We led its seed round, which was joined by friends from Nina Capital, Novacapital, and Innovation Nest.

CARDIO IS A PRIME CANDIDATE FOR TECTONIC SHIFT.

We don’t mind earthquakes in the markets… despite the pain they cause to the establishment, it recreates and forms new lands. We view markets like tectonic plates — they shift, hit on each other, and sometimes clash, crack and cause tectonic earthquakes and reshape themselves or even get replaced. All of it as a result of many forces underneath which unleash the change. So do the markets. And we believe the healthcare markets are entering a major stage of tectonic shifts.

Shifts from “doctor-first” to “patient-first”, from trained brains (tacit knowhow) to trained AI tools (embedded knowhow), from activity-based to value-based. As a result, there will be brand new market categories, which do not exist today… and we do not really need to know how big the new categories will be… if the problem is huge, so will be the markets of these categories.

Among all, the cardiovascular disease space is the prime candidate for the tectonic shift.

WHY ARE OUR CAR PARTS BETTER TREATED THAN OUR OWN BODY PARTS?

It always amazes me how much better monitoring and way more service checks we give to our cars than we do to our bodies. Most cars have embedded systems that keep eyes on every critical part of the vehicle when you do not even realize that such part is there and that it can be vulnerable, or it can even cause a painful malfunction. That is what we believe Cardiomatics shall become for the part of our bodies: the Heart.

It appears the randomness, insufficient length of monitored periods, and overall unprecedented lack of monitoring frequency is to blame. And besides, once the checkups happen, lots of precious talents get consummated on the work that should be passed on less costly resources, and not to eat the experts’ time.

The data access and interpretation remain unsolved major hurdles of bringing the care for the heart (and other body parts) to the standards that the car brakes or car engines enjoy today.

BRINGING THE CAR PROTECTIVE SERVICE TO THE HEART CARE.

Data access and interpretation are mutually interconnected. One without the other offers low value to the patient, to its GP, and to the cardiologists. We invested in Cardiomatics to change it. The expectations are big. The challenges even bigger.

• New data pools need to be created, of the size not seen before;
• Surrounding devices need to grow the body sensors’ omnipresence, to improve the signal reading (like the photo camera used to advance from low-resolution during Nokia times to high-resolution in Apple times), and to be connected with interpretation engines, and with the right doctors from anywhere and anytime;
• A layer of interpretation engines needs to deliver the precision of the Swiss watch. Remember 95% reliability is not good enough, as it still causes trust issues and fears of mishaps. As an analogy, think of years of training Siri has needed to grow into a trusted conversation tool. So it has taken years of training (and will take) to Cardiomatics to grow into 99+% precision.
• And yes, that is still not enough. The aspiration and commitment must be even bigger and yes, here Cardiomatics may be getting a little ahead of curve, as experts may still favor engines that organize data for their trained brains, than tools that interpret and can advance the cardiologists ability to see above the pattern spotting and take the diagnostics to the next level.

Lots of challenges to solve. That’s what I like about Cardiomatics and its founders: dedication and commitment to get ahead of the curve, advance the heartcare, work the toughest and most challenging problem — interpreting to revolutionize the industry and bring the “car protective service” to heart care.

THINKING BEYOND OBVIOUS DIAGNOSTICS. COMMITTED TO BIGGER IMPACT.

We understand that it is a tough and long journey but also exciting and impactful. We like

• the commitment of Cardiomatics team to become a key contributor of the real-world evidence and real-world data to support and accelerate clinical trial designs and observational studies.
• the passion to excite expert brains of cardiologists to refocusing on discovery and new unknown territories of cardiovascular disease space, and going beyond and above spotting the patterns, which AI tools like Cardiomatics can do in a split second.
• the vision to remove the barriers and democratize access to quality monitoring for the broadest population at times when a thought of keeping eye on your heart does not even cross your mind; and later is just late.

And with the demand for heart care (with lives lived longer) rising faster than the supply can scale, clinical-grade software like Cardiomatics will become a societal necessity.

TEAM THAT BUILDS FROM UNDERNEATH TO CHANGE THE HEART CARE

Rafal and Mariusz have been dedicated to signal analysis and interpretation since their Ph.D. times, and they turned the passion into the business.

When I met Rafal and Mariusz for the first time, it became very clear that they not only get the problem, they also see the way through it. And their determination to crack it turned infectious very fast, together with both proof of commercial acceptance and a passed medical certification (CE marking), which only very few AI tools have in the space. I liked that. As long-live experts, they can be the team to activate the tectonic shift in access, productivity, and discovery in heart care.

I learned through many cases in the past that the financial outcome is highly correlated with a great cause. I believe Cardiomatics is on the journey to be such a case. Thus, we wrote this early seed check to Rafal and Mariusz.

Bring it on.