Vilnius, Lithuania-based Oxipit, a computer vision software startup specialising in medical imaging, announced on Thursday, January 19, that it has raised $4.9M (approximately €4.4M) in a round of funding led by Taiwania Capital, Practica Capital, and Coinvest Capital. Many angel investors also participated in the round.
Oxipit says it will use the funds to advance its autonomous AI medical imaging applications and accelerate market expansion into new regions, focusing on the United Kingdom.
“2022 was a breakthrough year for the Oxipit team. In spring, we introduced ChestLink – the first fully autonomous AI medical imaging application, which produces patient reports without any radiologist oversight. For a long time, the tech world predicted AI to take over the diagnostics of certain pathologies. This year ChestLink made the first inroads into the future of diagnostic medicine,” says CEO of Oxipit, Gediminas Peksys.
Oxipit: What you need to know
Founded by Gediminas Peksys and Darius Barušauskas, Oxipit develops AI applications for diagnostic medical imaging. The company has so far developed two products – ChestLink and Oxipit Quality.
The Lithuanian company claims ChestLink is the first fully autonomous AI medical imaging product with a CE mark. It helps identify CXRs (Chest X-Rays) with no abnormality and produces finalised patient reports without any intervention from the radiologist.
The software helps significantly reduce the workload of radiologists in the primary care setting, addressing the global shortage of radiologists.
In April 2022, the company received CE Class IIb certification for ChestLink, allowing the company to deploy the software in 32 European markets.
Oxypit Quality acts as a virtual radiologist assistant. It provides quality control for chest X-rays, musculoskeletal X-rays, computer tomography, and mammography medical images. The application reviews every medical image and the corresponding radiologist report. If it detects any findings missed in the report, it will instantly notify the radiologist to take another look.
The company says Oxipit Quality proved instrumental in improving early lung cancer diagnostics.
In pilot studies across Germany, Spain, Greece, the Netherlands, Finland, and Lithuania, Oxipit Quality helped identify 20 per cent more lung nodules when assisting radiologists, claims the company.
It is already available in European markets and Australia. In December, it was certified for use in Brazil.
The company plans to file for US FDA certification in 2023.
The Investor
Taiwania Capital is a venture capital firm founded by the National Development Fund of the Executive Yuan of Taiwan and private enterprises.
The VC firm focuses on investing in technologies and biotech areas startups that are Taiwan or US-based with disruptive and advanced technology.
“Oxipit’s strong leadership, innovative technology, and uniquely positioned AI solutions could revolutionise medical image processing and improve diagnostic efficiency and quality. We look forward to working closely with Oxipit to expand its business to Taiwan and other countries,“ says Mitch Yang, managing partner at Taiwania Capital.
