NEW York and Paris-based global venture capital investor Eckuity is injecting cash into Sonrai Analytics, a Belfast innovator in artificial intelligence (AI) data discovery which accelerates bio-marker discovery, development and deployment for biotech and pharma organisations.
The additional capital further strengthens the Queen's University spin-out's commercial aspirations and will allows it to diversify its market segments.
It follows a £2.2m seed funding round for Sonrai earlier this year, led by Forward Partners and institutional investors Techstart Ventures, Co-Fund NI (managed by Clarendon Fund Managers), QUBIS, and other angel investors.
The discovery of new bio-markers has become increasingly difficult in the modern era, where more sensitive detection methods generate outputs in increasingly large volumes.
The Sonrai platform applies AI and deep learning to unlock critical information contained in big data to enable biotech and pharma organisations to collaborate, filter and transform datasets in real-time.
It provides context and confidence to downstream users of the data, increasing its utility, robustness and, therefore, its value to the organisation. Most importantly, this leads to quicker and more effective treatments and cures for cancer and other diseases with poor clinical outcomes.
Sonrai Analytics founder and chief executive Dr Darragh McArt said: “We have rapidly enhanced our product and services by understanding our customer’s challenges and meeting their expectations, and we're delighted to have Eckuity join our team as we accelerate opportunities in the US and to provide advice and support as we progress the business.”
Eckuity partner Mark Goldstone added: “Research companies and organisations are already sitting on a treasure trove of data, if only they could access it in a way that is easy to view and simple to interrogate.
“Sonrai incorporates data visualisation and predictive analytics into workflows to accelerate organisational processes, improve performance and unlock corporate value. We are very excited about the impact Sonrai will have on the market.”
