April 8, 2019 — Radiology artificial intelligence (AI) company Enlitic announced the close of its $15 million Series B financing round. The investment was led by Marubeni, with whom the company has been developing the Japanese market since 2017. The round saw further investment from Capitol Health, who previously led the company's Series A in 2016, as well as new participation from several top investors in Australia. Approximately 10 percent of the round was set aside for individual radiologists and other physicians who have either trained or used the company’s medical AI solutions. Enlitic plans to use the funding to enhance its artificial intelligence product portfolio, expand its engineering and data scientist teams, and focus on regulatory approval for clinical use in the U.S., Australia, Japan, Europe, Canada and Brazil.
Enlitic uses deep learning and other forms of artificial intelligence to develop algorithms that identify and analyze suspicious findings in medical images. Working closely with hospitals and radiology providers around the world, the company has developed a comprehensive platform enabling the development, validation and seamless integration of clinical AI at scale. Early applications of Enlitic’s technology were shown to speed up radiologist’s interpretation by over 20 percent, while improving true positive rates and reducing false positive rates by over 10 percent. Other applications were shown to assist in the identification of malignancy up to two years earlier.
Enlitic’s first product interprets chest X-rays, triaging normal from abnormal scans, and detecting and characterizing more than 40 distinct abnormalities such as cardiomegaly, lung nodules and pneumothorax. Chest X-rays are notoriously difficult to interpret given the image’s lack of specificity, yet they are still the most common type of radiological examination, representing an estimated 45 percent of all studies globally. Enlitic is working with partners around the world for the relevant approvals to deploy this product in several countries, helping radiologists to interpret chest X-rays faster, and with higher accuracy.
Recognizing the massive complexity of the average diagnostic workflow, Enlitic is rapidly training models to assist in more areas of radiology. In January of this year, the company launched their new datacenter with a graphics processing unit (GPU) supercluster enabling model development at more than 10 times the speed. In February, they launched their global beta program, enabling their models to be regionally tuned and tested in several countries simultaneously. At their current pace, Enlitic expects to be able to interpret 95 percent of all types of X-rays by the end of 2019, and 95 percent of common computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans by 2021.
Marubeni, who led the Series B investment round, is a Japanese trading company and one of the largest sogo shosha, (general trading companies), with 12 business divisions. Marubeni is a key partner to Enlitic and will help drive development and adoption of Enlitic’s products in Japan. Marubeni added, “Japan especially suffers from an aging population and a shrinking birth rate, placing an increasing burden on hospitals and radiologists. With Enlitic’s groundbreaking AI products, we see a way to accurately and efficiently address our current healthcare challenges in Japan and Asia, while providing superior healthcare.”
For more information: www.enlitic.com
May 02, 2024 
