Healthtech startup Idoven raises $19.8m funding to redefine detection and precision medicine of cardiovascular diseases

Idoven, a pioneering health tech company advancing early detection and precision medicine of cardiovascular disease, announced it has raised $19.8 million in funding. The funding consists of a $12.9 million Series A round co-led by global software investor Insight Partners and Northzone with participation from Wayra.

The round is also supplemented by $6.9 million in grant and equity funding awarded by the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator. The new funding will be used to further develop the company's best-in-class AI platform to identify arrhythmias and cardiac abnormalities, as well as accelerate hiring to build on its mission to advance early diagnosis and precision medicine of cardiovascular diseases.

A prominent list of angel investors joined the round, including Ron Vianu, Founder and CEO of Covera Health; Brad Fluegel, Former SVP, Chief Healthcare Commercial Officer and Strategy Officer at Walgreens; and Vlad Lata, Founder and CEO of Avi Medical,  among others. The round was also joined by existing angels, including Iker Casillas, captain of Spain's World Cup-winning football team and UNDP ambassador, and former senior executives from Amazon and Apple, Diego Piacentini and Sebastian Gunningham. This round follows a $2 million seed round raised 12 months ago from leading business angels, Wayra and the Accel Starter programme.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death and is expected to be a $1 trillion public health burden by 2035, based on a study by the American Heart Association. Managing this public health challenge starts with early diagnosis, and the most ubiquitous point-of-care test to detect heart problems is the electrocardiogram (ECG). However, today's healthcare outdated systems are not sufficient to keep up with the demand for ECG interpretation. Over 1 million hours are spent by physicians just in Europe every day analysing patients' ECG data to diagnose arrhythmias and other heart conditions. Moreover, with the use of wearables and other biosensors rapidly accelerating, the healthcare industry requires new approaches to analyse data at unprecedented speed and scale. Idoven was born to solve this problem.

Idoven's team of data scientists, engineers and cardiologists leverage a proprietary deep learning system applied to cardiology to develop the world's first cardiology-as-a-service platform powered by AI that augments a clinician's ability to identify, triage and diagnose patients at scale. The solution is cloud-based and hardware-agnostic, able to analyse ECGs of any duration and from any device, and is made available to customers via API. The algorithms detect heart conditions that affect over 90% of the global population.

Unlike other health technology companies using AI to detect heart problems that are proprietary to their own hardware, Idoven's technology is hardware agnostic. This ensures that Idoven's algorithms are trained on the most complete database of signals, from 1-lead smartwatch ECGs to 12-lead hospital ECGs and long-duration ambulatory ECGs. Interpreting all types of ECG data is critical for obtaining a complete and standardised picture of the patient's cardiac history at any moment during the patient journey.

Marina Manuel Breysse, Co-founder and CEO, Idoven: "Our AI software, Willem, has been learning cardiology for years and today, can help diagnose heart disease, anywhere and at any time, dramatically increasing our capacity to identify people in need of care.  Our vision is to transform the way cardiovascular diseases are identified by augmenting the physician's decision making through integration of AI algorithms into the everyday clinical workflow. Deep learning algorithms can significantly improve the diagnostic accuracy of software found in existing ECG hardware, and create new prediction capabilities. Our technology is being used by leading medical device manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies to standardise at scale the analysis of ECGs. ECGs are used in virtually all clinical trials, to track patients' heart conditions in almost any medical specialty, as well as to monitor the safety of treatments with cardiac effects, particularly prevalent in cardiac and cancer treatments. We are excited to be at the very forefront of this movement in cardiovascular care to help doctors and patients all over the world."

One of the company's early backers, Iker Casillas, legendary Real Madrid goalkeeper and World Cup-winning Spain football team captain, refers to Idoven as "the AI that saved my life." After suffering a life-changing heart attack during training in 2019, Casillas and his foundation have teamed up with Idoven to promote the early detection and intervention of cardiovascular diseases, particularly among the most vulnerable groups like children with Down Syndrome and patients with congenital heart diseases or at high risk of sudden cardiac death.

Scott Barclay, Managing Director, Insight Partners: "The future of medicine requires deeply validated artificial intelligence deployed via API to augment clinicians, and this is especially true in cardiology given the importance of heart health and the explosion of monitoring technology. Idoven has the chance to improve healthcare and save lives, at scale. This is the essence of the type of software-driven technology and empathy that Insight looks for in early healthcare investments."

Michiel Kotting, Partner, Northzone: "In meeting the team at Idoven we were instantly struck with how big the impact of their work can be on global health. Starting with cardiologist-level accuracy in seconds and at scale for hospital ECGs, saving cost and avoiding delays, the database they are building up will enable potential heart problems to be spotted in advance on everyday fitness trackers. The unique skill set of a phenomenal team with deep backgrounds in cardiology, statistics, AI/ML and operations will enable this exciting future. We are incredibly proud and excited to join the team on this journey."

Through exclusive partnerships and research collaborations with world-class research institutions, Idoven has developed one of the world's largest ECG databases for AI development and scientific innovations. Among them is the pan-European MAESTRIA Consortium (Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence for Early Detection of Stroke and Atrial Fibrillation) that involves collaboration with 17 other leading European and US research centres, and industry partners to develop and validate the first European integrative diagnostic digital platform, starting with atrial fibrillation.

www.idoven.ai