Healthcare has become a key industry for the ongoing artificial intelligence revolution, and major players such as IBM Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc. all have their own health AI projects. Sophia Genetics may not have the same industry clout as IBM or Google, but the Switzerland-based big-data company is looking to shake up healthcare with its AI, and the company today that it has closed a $30 million Series D funding round. The round was led by Balderton Capital, which was also joined by 360º Capital Partners and existing investors Invoke Capital and Alychlo. With the new funding, Sophia Genetics has raised more than $58.75 million in total financing. Founded in 2011, Sophia Genetics uses its AI called “SOPHiA” to analyze patients’ genomic profiles to diagnose illnesses and better understand each patient’s unique health requirements. According to Sophia Genetics, combining AI with DNA with usher in a new era of personalized medicine. “Since inception, our vision has been to develop innovative technological solutions to help patients, equally wherever they live,” Sophia Genetics co-founder and Chief Executive Jurgi Camblong said in a statement. “SOPHiA acts as a real disruptor by breaking down the information silos in healthcare, meaning that the information from a patient in London or Paris can for instance help better diagnose and treat a patient in Lagos or Rio.” Sophia Genetics is only one of many companies looking to apply AI to healthcare. For example, the Alphabet-owned DeepMind Technologies Inc. has been working with the U.K.’s National Health Service to implement a patient care management system that relies on machine learning. A number of doctors and hospitals also use IBM Watson for various health care tasks, and some have even used Watson to search for cancer cures. If Sophia Genetics isn’t the only healthcare AI company, its focus on genomic profiles may give it an edge over the competition. “Sophia Genetics is a company at the forefront of two rapidly changing technologies: genomic medicine and artificial intelligence,” said James Wise, a partner at Balderton Capital. “By giving every healthcare professional a standardized, straightforward and fast way to analyze these complex data sets is an essential step to unlock the potential of data-driven medicine.” Wise added that “as diagnostic kits and sequencers become cheaper and more powerful, we believe that there is an opportunity to build the defining software layer on top of these technologies in genomics, just as Windows did for PCs and Android has for smartphones.” Show your support for our mission with our one-click subscription to our YouTube channel (below). The more subscribers we have, the more YouTube will suggest relevant enterprise and emerging technology content to you. Thanks! Support our mission: >>>>>> SUBSCRIBE NOW >>>>>> to our YouTube channel. … We’d also like to tell you about our mission and how you can help us fulfill it. SiliconANGLE Media Inc.’s business model is based on the intrinsic value of the content, not advertising. Unlike many online publications, we don’t have a paywall or run banner advertising, because we want to keep our journalism open, without influence or the need to chase traffic.The journalism, reporting and commentary on SiliconANGLE — along with live, unscripted video from our Silicon Valley studio and globe-trotting video teams at theCUBE — take a lot of hard work, time and money. Keeping the quality high requires the support of sponsors who are aligned with our vision of ad-free journalism content. If you like the reporting, video interviews and other ad-free content here, please take a moment to check out a sample of the video content supported by our sponsors, tweet your support, and keep coming back to SiliconANGLE.
UK-based Balderton Capital has led a $30m series D funding round for the Swiss health tech firm Sophia Genetics. The company is developing an artificial intelligence platform that will allow doctors to identify and treat patients with rare genetic diseases. It claims the overall patient data collected will also lead to better diagnosis of others. A number of other companies are looking to use AI technology in the healthcare sector, such as DeepMind Technologies, which is working with the British National Health Service to implement a patient care management system relying on machine learning.