Seed-funding, building a disease-agnostic platform and securing a spot in the MedTech Innovator Asia Pacific Accelerator!

We closed our seed funding led by Stanford Angel Entrepreneurs, RedStart Lab, Entrepreneur First, and IKP! We have gone from 3 to 15 members with strong expertise in connectomic analysis.

Investment

We are excited to welcome on board Stanford Angel Entrepreneurs, RedStart Lab, Entrepreneur First, and IKP! 

“BrainSight is not just improving MRI imaging but, based on Dr. Rimjhim’s research at NIMHANs, leapfrogging the true potential of this modality to operate at the cutting edge of science, technology, and impact. BrainSight’s platform has the potential to change the global clinical paradigm for neurosurgery and neuropsychiatry, and we are excited to partner with Laina and Rimjhim on this journey”, says Akshat Shah of Stanford Angels Entrepreneurs. The angel network, comprised of Stanford University’s alumni in India, counts several high-profile members like Sandeep Singhal, Paula Mariwala, and Satyen Kothari and has backed marquee start-ups such as ed-tech unicorn, Unacademy, space-tech start-up, Pixxel, and climate-tech start-up, Terra.do.

Thank you for believing in us and giving us the impetus to achieve our vision and mission. We are excited to build a great product that delivers value to patients and caregivers across the world with you.

Product Updates

VoxelBox

VoxelBox uses state of the art technologies and helps researchers and clinicians understand macroscopic brain function at the click of a button. The platform is envisioned as an indication-agnostic platform to map an individual’s structural and functional connectome and compare it against the healthy connectome. Over and above it, the platform uses AI to classify the resultant connectomic patterns and anomalies. 

Voxel box version 1.3 is ready. It can process imaging and electronic data directly uploaded to the cloud by the radiologist, and map the functional connectome of the individual. 

In building VoxelBox 1.3 we were supported by the best in class. 

• We worked with the excellent team at Medidata to deploy their EDC and Imaging capture tools. The Medidata platform ensures that as we scale our connectomic work to clinicians and researchers treating and studying brain disorders, the accompanying Medidata platform would reduce their time to go-live on various studies. 

• We were also mentored by the excellent team at Microsoft and Accenture to ensure that our cloud platform was built for scale, privacy and security from the word go.

You might be wowed at just those two, but the main goodies really are the connectomic and AI analysis we do on the data once we get it on our cloud. 

Connectomic pipeline

After extensive research we have made significant progress on the pre-processing of rs-fMRI. In the next version, we are working on improving the signal to noise ratio and thresholding to give a better focused output. 

AI on structural features

The previous quarter, we worked on segmentation of brain tumors. We will be working on exploratory data analysis and create a first version of the brain tumors pipeline in the upcoming quarter.

AI on functional features - Eloquent cortex Mapping for pre surgical planning 

The first iteration of our Eloquent Cortex Mapping is ready. The tool extracts frequencies of 3 major functions - Visual, Language and Motor from resting state functional MRI. 

VoxelPods - Building VoxelBox communities

VoxelPods are communities of doctors, patients, researchers built around connectomic analysis. Our connectomic teams help sponsors and CROs deliver true outcomes for some of the most subjective and complex indications, including neuro-surgical, psychiatric, neurodegenerative, and pain clinical trials. 

Some of the ones we are already helping in are 

VoxelPod Dementia

After a brief pause due to the second Covid-19 wave, we have restarted the Dementia study in collaboration with BIRAC and Max Hospital, New Delhi. We are looking for more centres outside Delhi who would like to do connectomic analysis for dementia patients. 

VoxelPod Covid-19

As COVID19 has wrecked patient lives, we believe connectomic analysis can help understand this disorder much better. We will kick off this VoxelPod with a Neurogram, a mini-symposium in collaboration with doctors, researchers and companies spearheading work in this area next month. Please register if you are interested.

VoxelPod Brain Tumor

We have been exploring interesting use-cases around the use of connectomic analysis in Brain Tumor. We have built one of these extensions, and have filed our 6th patent for exploring functional and structural dynamics in Brain Tumor cases.

We are in conversation with leading doctors to conduct studies using VoxelBox Brain Tumor for presurgical mapping of visual, motor and language areas using rs-fMRI. We will soon be announcing our partnerships. If you are interested in collaborating, please drop us a note.

Events

Neurogram: Covid and the Connectome

We are excited to host Neurogram: Covid and the Connectome, a webinar to understand the long term impact of Covid on brain functioning using technology on Dec 4 in collaboration with Dassault Systemes.

Here are the speakers who will be presenting their research

Dr. Naina Picardo

Dr. Naina Picardo is a Professor in the ENT department at CMC Vellore. She went to AFMC, Pune for her MBBS and pursued her MD at CMC, Vellore.

Dr. Ajith Sivadasan

Dr. Ajith Sivadasan is a Professor of Neurology at the Department of Neurological Sciences, Christian Medical College, Vellore. He will be talking about Neurological manifestations following COVID-19 infection.

Dr. Pavithra Ratna Mannam

Dr. Pavithra Mannam is an Associate Professor of Radiology at CMC, Vellore. She will be talking about The novel Coronavirus and the Brain.

Dr. Ranganayaki Sathyanarayanan

Dr. Sathyanarayanan received her PhD from NIMHANS in Neurochemistry and currently leads the Neuroscience Research team at BrainSightAI.

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Panel Discussion on “Designing AI-led solutions for a smarter world”

Dr. Rimjhim Agrawal was invited to be a panelist by Money Control, CNBC TV-18 and GE led session "Designing AI-led solutions for a smarter world". She spoke about the importance of AI in healthcare. Watch the excerpts of the discussion below.

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Panel Discussion on “All Eyes on the Future of AI”

Dr. Rimjhim Agrawal was a panelist on Accenture’s Artificial Intelligence Week talking about the future of AI, the need for talent in the industry and how AI can transform healthcare.

• We were a part of the Virtual Neuroscience and Craniofacial Surgery conference held by Dassault Systemes. The event focused on educating neuroscience players about 

• "Virtual human twins" approach to brain disorders

• Advances in AI and 3D visualization and simulation   

• Discuss the current state-of-the-art neuroscience practice 

The conference was attended by over 200 doctors across the world and included the following distinguished speakers

• Dr. Mazda Turel is a practicing Neurosurgeon at the prestigious Wockhardt Hospitals, South Mumbai, India and advisor to BrainSightAI. He specializes in the treatment of diseases of the brain and spine and advocates an approach to neurosurgery that is both balanced and aggressive.

• Dr. S M Kotrashetti is currently a Professor of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the KLE VK Institute of Dental Sciences, Belgaum. He carries a rich expertise with his previous designation of Cleft Surgeon, KLE SMILE TRAIN, KLE University, Belgaum. He has even been a Director at the KLE Implant Course. 

• Dr. Nitin Bhola is currently serving as HOD at the Dept. of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Sharad Pawar Dental, (DMIMSU), Sawangi (M) Wardha.He carries over 90 International and National Indexed Publications, has co-authored 5 textbooks, and has been a reviewer in 7 indexed journals.

• Nicolas Gazeres holds a PhD in Computational Neuroscience from Université Pierre et Marie Curie (1999). Since then he has worked with Dassault Systèmes and now leads a computational neurology team, passionate about bringing new interpretation tools to neurologists based on Virtual Brain technologies.

• Frédéric Vacher joined Dassault Systèmes in 1998 and has been the Head of Innovation and created the 3DEXPERIENCE Lab, an open innovation lab accelerating disruptive innovations that gives a strong positive impact on society since 2015.

• Julia Neguer has nearly a decade of experience bringing together science, technology and innovation across sectors. She is currently the Head of Healthcare & Life Sciences Strategy for Dassault Systèmes. She wants to catalyze the Virtual Twin Experience of Humans and  transform healthcare towards value-based care, medical practice excellence and improved patient outcomes.

Our CEO, Laina hosted the conference!

Accelerators

Project Amplify by Microsoft and Accenture

We are one of 33 startups chosen in the APAC region by Microsoft and Accenture led “Project Amplify”. We hope to increase our social impact with access to the latest technologies, expertise and mentoring. 

Women Founders Academy by Google

Laina Emmanuel, our CEO, was one of the founders selected for the Women Founders Academy.  She is one of 2 Indian startups selected for the program. The is a 12-week programme that provides training to improve leadership abilities and establish great teams. 

Awards and Recognition

We have featured on Forbes India’s W Power List. We would like to acknowledge that we have come this far standing on the shoulders of giants. Our hope is that women leaders are able to stand on our shoulders and go even further.

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We were awarded the “Most Admired and Preferred Healthtech Emerging Unicorn for their Groundbreaking and Innovative Technology” by CE Worldwide at the 127th Conference, Unicorns and Emerging Unicorns 2021 Awards.

Competitions

We applied for the prestigious MedTech Innovator and competed with 500+ companies in the APAC region and made it to the top 20! The selection process for this year’s Showcase and Accelerator program was extremely competitive, with only a 4% acceptance rate.

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We applied for the Omnis Awards, which celebrate remote work. We are happy to share that we have been shortlisted in the “Asynchronous and Hybrid Working” category.

Internal Processes

Our weekly coffee chats have  become a great place for us to unwind and welcome the weekend. We had an open mic last week and realized we have talented poets, singers, raconteurs and musicians onboard!

We are hiring!

We are looking for a Regulations Manager. Please share the opportunity in your circle.