Singapore-based healthtech start up Mesh bio has raised US$1.8 million (SG$2.4 million) in seed funding, led by deep tech investors Elev8.vc and enterprise Singapore’s investment arm Seeds Capital, along with Citrine Capital and Tael partners.
The funds will be used to accelerate the rollout of Mesh bio’s solution, DARA® – a predictive analytics and clinical workflow automation solution for healthcare providers – in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. The funding will also support clinical partnerships and collaborations.
Mesh bio was founded in 2018 by healthcare and technology veterans – Andrew Wu, formerly Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Clearbridge Biomedics (now known as Biolidics), Arsen Batagov, former A*Star bioinformatics scientist and Dr Melvin Heng, physician and hospital administrator.
Andrew Wu, Mesh Bio Co-founder and CEO said, “Chronic diseases are increasing in Asia, making patient management increasingly complex and challenging. For instance, diabetes prevalence in Malaysia is the highest in Southeast Asia at 16.8 per cent. In Singapore it is 14.2 per cent and in Thailand, 8.3 per cent.
The situation is compounded by the lack of doctors, especially specialists, forcing general practitioners – lacking specialist training in endocrinology – to manage these challenging patient cases.
“Our vision is to deliver cutting-edge digital solutions to address challenges in patient management and rising chronic diseases in the region. Through the support of Elev8.vc, Seeds Capital, Citrine Capital and Tael partners, we see tremendous opportunity to help healthcare providers cope with the rise in cases and simultaneously, improve patient treatment and outcomes with DARA®,” he added.
DARA® Draws in real-time, multidimensional patient data: health history, lab tests and medical images. It delivers a patient-centric visual report, helping doctors counsel patients and allowing patients to understand their laboratory reports and the diseases they live with.
In-built with clinical best practices, guidelines and holistic patient assessments, DARA® helps doctors leverage knowledge from the global community of healthcare practitioners. Its risk assessment algorithms are compliant with local clinical practice guidelines.
DARA® has helped healthcare providers in Singapore analyse patient data quickly and effectively, increasing report generation by five times and reducing human error. The solution has delivered over 60 per cent in operational savings and 99 per cent in revenue growth.
Digital health technologies are increasingly in the spotlight since Covid-19, securing greater investor interest. In 2020, the Asia pacific digital health ecosystem closed US$ 6.14 billion in venture capital funding, 25 per cent higher than 2019. The top funded cluster was medical diagnostics.
