BELFAST-based AI data discovery company Sonrai Analytics has secured a seed funding round of £2.175 million to accelerate the global adoption of its technology.
The investment will help Sonrai to reach more companies globally to translate precision medicine’s complex multi-omics data into real insights leading to better-personalised treatments for patients.
And it will also lead to the creation of eight new jobs as the company expands its data science and engineering teams by the end of this year.
Sonrai, founded in 2018 as a spin-out from Qubis, the commercialisation arm of Queen’s University, develops cutting-edge architecture which leads to faster and more effective discovery of key mechanisms and drivers within healthcare.
The funding round was led by Forward Partners, a London-based venture capital firm specialising in the tech sector, with input also coming from individual angel investor and existing institutional investors Techstart Ventures, Co-Fund NI (managed by Clarendon Fund Managers) and Qubis.
“This investment enables us to focus on the growth of our customer base in the US, develop our customer success strategy and expand our AI capabilities to further enable discovery in healthcare,” according to Sonrai Analytics chief executive Dr Darragh McArt.
“We are delighted to welcome Forward Partners to the board and feel their commercial insights will help drive the business to increased success.”
Luke Smith, investment partner at Forward Partners said: “We're happy to back Sonrai on the next stage of its growth to become a leading precision medicine platform.
“We're excited by companies that apply cutting-edge AI to solve big problems and make new discoveries and have been really impressed by the strength of Sonrai's platform and the ability to combine multiple types of healthcare data to gain insights into patients' health.
“We see the great potential it holds to accelerate new drug and healthcare developments. Darragh's expertise in the space has enabled him to build a very strong team and impressive traction with customers for a business of this stage.”
Stuart Gaffikin, investment manager at Clarendon Fund Managers, said: “This funding will allow Sonrai to continue to grow and commercialise its AI cloud data analytics software platform in its target markets in Europe and the USA. We look forward to continuing to play our role in supporting the company’s growth and development going forward.”
