DeepTech Neuroscience start-up BrainSightAI raises $750,000 in seed funding

Bengaluru-based DeepTech neuroscience start-up, BrainSightAI raised USD 750,000 in a seed round led by Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs India with participation from Entrepreneur First, Info Edge Ventures, and IKP Knowledge Park. The company plans to leverage the capital to further its mission to enable greater precision in diagnosis and treatment planning of neuro-oncological and neuropsychiatric disorders.

“Neuro disorders, such as oncologic, trauma and psychiatric, are the third-leading contributors to the global disease burden. To be able to address these potentially life-threatening disorders better, the healthcare industry needs tools to predict outcomes earlier, discover new clinical and drug indications, and better understand drug and therapy responses. Such intuitive tools weren’t possible earlier. However, that is changing now. We are now at an inflection point, where with data, lots of computing power, and artificial intelligence, we can cloud-enable complex neuroscience-based workflows. Now, doctors and researchers can focus on asking questions and not on the mechanics of answering questions," Laina Emmanuel, Co-founder and CEO, BrainSightAI said.

Dr. Rimjhim Agarwal and Laina Emmanuel first met in 2019 at Entrepreneur First - a global tech investment firm that mentors aspiring entrepreneurs to build on their idea, find a co-founder and build their dream start-ups. Within three months, BrainSightAI came into being as a promising start-up that combines artificial intelligence (AI) and neuroscience to enable functional investigation through macroscopic brain-mapping for patients suffering from psychosis.

As they started developing the core technology and initial product, early dialogue with prospective customers revealed the need for flexible and easy-to-use tools that integrate the macro-, meso-, and microscopic view of the brain for other disciplines too, such as neurosurgery and neurology. Their first cloud-based neuroscience workflow allows neurosurgeons and neuro-radiologists to map the eloquent cortex of the brain using just resting-state fMRI, a task which they find extremely difficult especially for non-cooperative patients.

“BrainSight is not just improving MRI imaging but, based on Dr. Rimjhim’s research at NIMHANs, leapfrogging the true potential of this modality to operate at the cutting edge of science, technology, and impact. BrainSight’s platform has the potential to change the global clinical paradigm for neurosurgery and neuropsychiatry, and we are excited to partner with Laina and Rimjhim on this journey," said Akshat Shah and Sandeep Singhal of Stanford Angels and Entrepreneurs India.