Exclusive: Segmed Raises Over $2M To Curate Medical Datasets

Health care data is collected all day, every day, but without a way to standardize, label and curate it, the data is of little use.

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Enter Segmed, a startup incubated at Stanford University that takes on the heavy lifting of sourcing data and preparing it in a way that can be used by patients, clinicians and researchers, as well as for artificial intelligence training. Previously, a human would have to read each report to determine if that particular data could be used.

“It can take more than 18 months for a company to get its own dataset,” Cailin Hardell, co-founder and CEO of Segmed, told Crunchbase News. “Our advantages are speed and the relationships we already have in place to provide a more diverse dataset. Previously, companies would have to form relationships one by one with health care providers.”

The company got a boost from Blumberg Capital, which led a round of more than $2 million in seed funding. The firm was joined by Nina Capital and a group of angel investors. Segmed has raised a total of $2.75 million since it was founded last year through Stanford University’s Ignite program, Hardell said.

“All of the founders chose to work in the medical AI space, and what emerged at the end of the program was Segmed,” Hardell added. “We thought that if medical AI had potential, and if it solved the problem, we could push AI globally.”

Segmed has been busy hiring–tripling its team in the past six weeks–and is now focusing on onboarding data partners, as well as preparing its self-service platform for launch next year.

The company began serving its first customers in March and since then has met a few milestones including its first revenue, first six-figure orders, and inbound leads from larger companies, Hardell said.

Next up, Segmed is planning for a major announcement regarding its platform and gearing up to raise a Series A in 2021. Once the self-serve platform launches, Hardell expects its revenue and customer base to grow as well.

Meanwhile, David Blumberg, founder and managing partner at Blumberg Capital, said in an interview that there is a hunger for artificial intelligence in medicine.

“It’s saving lives, making doctors better practitioners and we can discover drugs faster than before,” he said. “Segmed is exciting for us as we move into more health care deals. Data has to be anonymized, secured and labeled so that the AI model can weigh the modes appropriately. We love that Segmed can grow its own data ‘moat’ and be competitive.”

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