ARTIFICIAL intelligence specialist and Queen's University spin-out Sonrai Analytics has closed a £700,000 funding round that signals a significant step in the company’s path towards delivering next-generation healthcare through big-data analysis.
And Invest NI has also offered the company £48,000 of support towards the creation of eight highly skilled jobs in the areas of software engineering and data science.
Sonrai, established in 2018 by Dr Darragh McArt and Deva Senevirathne, applies AI and deep learning to develop bespoke applications and interfaces that enable healthcare organisations, biotech and pharma to filter and transform data sets in real time.
The platform delivers next generation data visualisation and predictive analytics to workflows that accelerate organisational processes and improves performance.
The investment round has come from a range of significant private Northern Irish and Irish entrepreneurs and local seed funders, led by Techstart Ventures, alongside Qubis and Co-Fund NI.
Dr McArt said: “Having emerged from the thriving research environment and state-of-the-art bioinformatics facilities at Queen’s Precision Medicine Centre, Sonrai is uniquely positioned to gain insights into modern day healthcare needs and couple this with the application of machine learning and AI to create digital information that helps improve patient treatment.”
“Sonrai’s technology is already helping healthcare organisations to advance bioscience analytics in the US and Europe. This funding is an encouraging milestone that will further boost the development and commercialisation of our company.”
Brian McCaul, chief executive at Qubis, said: “This funding will secure growth and sustained business for Sonrai in delivering exciting analytical solutions, ensuring traction and employment in key skills for the benefit of the Northern Ireland economy.
“These are exactly the type of knowledge intensive jobs we need. That the company is gaining international customers even prior to this seed round demonstrates the potential that Sonrai has.”
Techstart Ventures provides support for early stage technology businesses through its £30m equity fund.
Its investment director John Murray added: “The Sonrai solution unlocks critical information contained in the big data now being generated by researchers in drug trials and other studies and can lead to faster and more effective treatments and cures for cancer and other diseases.
“It was borne out of many years of academic research by Darragh and his team. Techstart is excited to support Sonrai as they now bring this solution to market.”
