In a move that promises to be a game-changer for healthcare, NVentures, the venture capital arm of computing giant Nvidia, has co-led a whopping $54 million Series D round in Minneapolis-based Flywheel. This significant investment is poised to accelerate medical AI development, furthering the impact of artificial intelligence in healthcare.
Nvidia Investment in Medical AI
In an industry that thrives on advancements, Nvidia’s recent backing of Flywheel stands out. Hours after teaming up with data cloud provider Snowflake, the company moved to bolster its foothold in the healthcare sector. Flywheel, which overcomes the data hurdles that hamper medical AI development, intends to use the capital injection to grow its footprint and assist healthcare and medical research organizations in focusing more on their AI projects.
How Flywheel Streamlines Data for AI Projects
Developing an AI model is a meticulous process. Organizations have to aggressively organize, curate, and clean their data to make it training-ready. According to Jim Olson, the CEO of Flywheel, the data preparation phase can consume up to 80% of a data scientist’s time. Founded in 2012, Flywheel targets this data problem with an end-to-end platform designed to automate the ingestion, curation, management, and computation of medical imaging data. This automation allows healthcare organizations to more efficiently scale AI development and other research discoveries.
“Flywheel allows providers to extract and mobilize valuable insights from data by making it more structured, accessible and conducive to integrated applications, including AI,” said Olson.
Flywheel’s Pioneering Solutions in Healthcare
Flywheel uses a three-tier system to manage, explore, and share imaging data. While the company has not disclosed the number of customers it serves, it has reported success stories from notable names such as Roche, Genentech, the University of California, San Francisco, CMU-Pitt Bridge Center, and Octave Bioscience.
“Our biggest competitor is often a homegrown solution that has been built internally but reaches a point where it can no longer scale or integrate with other applications like ours can,” Olson added.
Leveraging AI for Improved Patient Care with Nvidia
AI’s application in healthcare has led to significant improvements in patient care and operational efficiencies. Flywheel’s platform, which is unlocking the value within medical imaging data, is a testament to the continuous benefits of applying AI across the healthcare industry. According to a recent survey from GE HealthCare, 61% of clinicians believe that AI can aid in decision-making, while nearly 55% say it can enable faster health interventions.
Flywheel’s Expansion Plan: Beyond Public Sector
With a funding round that takes Flywheel’s total capital raised to over $150 million, the company is set to expand its services beyond the public sector and pharmaceutical companies to cover more healthcare segments. In addition to aiming to grow its presence across Europe, Flywheel seeks to empower healthcare providers, payers, and software companies to leverage their data for AI development.
“The application of AI has led to the discovery of new drugs, identifying patterns in disease, and improvements in patient care,” said Mohamed “Sid” Siddeek, head of NVentures.
As AI continues to shape the future of healthcare, the collaboration of Nvidia’s NVentures and Flywheel sets the stage for significant advancements in medical AI development. Whether it’s in patient care, operational efficiency, or discovering new drugs, the impact of this partnership is sure to be felt across the industry.
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