Indian cardiac analytics firm Tricog raises $10.5m
Tricog, an India-based cardiac analytics firm, has raised $10.5 million in Series B funding from a group of domestic and international VCs.
Japanese investors Aflac Ventures, Dream Incubator and UTEC - an early-stage investment vehicle associated with the University of Tokyo – contributed alongside TeamFund, a medical technology-focused impact fund in the US. Existing Indian investors Inventus Capital and Blume Ventures also participated. It comes about three years since the start-up’s INR140 million ($1.9 million) Series A.
Founded in 2015, Tricog sells custom-built hardware to doctors that helps interpret a patient’s electrocardiogram (ECG) readings. It also sells an in-home cardiac monitoring device for patients.
The company has partnered with Wipro GE Healthcare to launch InstaECG, a cloud-connected device that helps analyze ECG reports. Tricog says InstaECG can be used by doctors in remote clinics or underfunded hospitals to speed up the discovery of heart-related problems. The device processes data using artificial intelligence, with the final report vetted by a team of cardiologists.
Medical professionals or institutions pay a monthly subscription for the device of INR6,000-10,000. They also need to pay INR2,500 per month to Wipro GE Healthcare for a machine that produces the initial ECG reports. Wipro GE Healthcare, Siemens Healthineers, and Philips Healthcare are currently seeking to introduce ECG reading machines in rural India.
Tricog claims InstaECG is now being used in 12 countries in Southeast Asia and Africa and has helped screen 3 million patients. It says it plans to use the fresh capital to introduce its solution to doctors and hospitals in China and Japan.
“Tricog is a shining illustration of a multidisciplinary deep-technology innovation originating in Asia while solving a large global unmet need. We are now proud to lead their Series B as well, and supplement Tricog with Japanese medical device partnerships and R&D collaborations,” said Noriaki Sakamoto, a partner at UTEC.
According to the National Association of Software and Services Companies, an industry body for Indian IT firms, 4% of ECGs analysed by Tricog through the end of August 2019 helped discover critical cases.
Other start-ups offering solutions to speed up or improve cardiac analysis include US-based HD Medicals and Singapore’s Eko. The former offers improved stethoscopes while the latter helps interpret ECGs and ultrasound images of the heart. In January, it received $4 million in a funding round led by Sequoia India and EDBI, the investment arm of Singaporean governmental department Economic Development Board.
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