Investing in Gleamer: €7,5 million to make AI mainstream in medical radiology
By: Guillaume Meulle
AI turns mainstream in medical radiology, as more and more doctors rely on machine learning & image recognition to detect bone fractures. Faster diagnosis, improved accuracy… the benefits are huge for the healthcare system and for patients alike. At the forefront of this revolution is Gleamer, a startup backed by XAnge just over two years ago and which has made tremendous progress ever since. We are very excited to lead their €7,5 million Series A, along with MACSF, Majycc, Elaia, Bpifrance and a pool of eminent radiologists.
Pioneers, and market leaders in the making
Gleamer develops an AI that detects lesions in traumatic radiography, and presents them to the radiologist for final validation. It is simple in appearance, and extremely efficient in providing them with safety, reliability, time savings, and reading comfort. We loved the product the moment we discovered it, and funded its development in 2018
The team used the seed money to improve its (homemade) AI and to fund the large-scale clinical trial that would allow Gleamer to obtain a CE marking. The study was finalized earlier in 2020, and the results are quite impressive. They prove that combining a doctor’s expertise with Gleamer’s AI allows to reduce the rate of undetected fractures by 30%, all while significantly minimizing the time spent reading x-rays.
Gleamer’s CE marking is the first ever granted to an AI software in the field of bone fracture detection. We have reasons to believe it was long-awaited by the experts: just 7 months after approval, 10% of radiologists in France already use the software, and over 50 clinics and major hospitals are equipped across the country. Now that’s what we call traction ! It’s just a beginning, with projects being launched across Europe… and all the way down to New-Zealand.
What makes a great entrepreneur
Needless to say I’m impressed by the way things go at Gleamer. The pace is outstanding, typical of startups where execution matters most. It’s one thing to have a nice tech or a brilliant business idea. It’s another one to launch your platform, test it with challenging professionals, secure a class 2 marking and roll-out in a matter of months — all according to plan.
Christian is a world-class entrepreneur, with business acumen and a passion for science. His teams relentlessly push their R&D effort to maximise performance and secure an edge over the market. Gleamer started by partnering with major radiology groups to build a proprietary dataset, to get a unique opportunity to train its algorithms. Its AI engineers iterate on a continuous basis to improve wound detection, all while reducing the rates of false positives. This whole team is thriving for excellence with one target in mind: to be as useful as possible to radiologists. And it works, to the benefit of patients everywhere.
Getting ready for the USA
The Series A is a major step for Gleamer’s development. Here’s what’s next:
- With the money raised, the startup will recruit dedicated sales teams to accelerate its commercial development across Europe, Asia, the Middle-East and America.
- It will drive new clinical trials in the USA in order to secure FDA approval.
- Gleamer will also accelerate its R&D and product development to extend the application of IA solutions to new fields in radiology.
The start of a new medical era
Timing is quintessential to entrepreneurial success. For the first time ever earlier this month, an AI solution specialized in detecting strokes landed coverage from Medicare in the USA. The measure was taken to help hospitals adopt advanced technologies to improve care. In other words, the national healthcare system now encourages the use of AI with serious money when the technology is proven to benefit the patients. Mentalities are shifting, and this is amazing news for startups like Gleamer. Now’s their time to take the challenge. I know they are up to it!
