Medicus founder shares insights on recent Series A funding
Dubai-born healthcare technology innovator Medicus AI has recently announced the completion of the first tranche of its Series A funding round of $3.1M.
The investment was led by DieBrückenköpfe out of Germany, with contributions from Atieh Capital, Biopart and others.
Medicus is an AI-based platform that explains and interprets medical reports and health data, turning numbers into meaningful insights. Medicus works with diagnostic labs to deliver smart features and insights to both doctors, in terms of smart testing and diagnosis support, and to patients in the form of visual and interactive reports, powering continuous healthcare and coaching across all digital platforms
The Series A funding round will further fuel the company’s global expansion, as well as the development of the Medicus diagnostic lab and insurance products, across core markets and in new languages. To date, Medicus supports Arabic, German, French and English, with Italian, Chinese, Portuguese and Spanish in the pipeline for 2019.
Below we give some exclusive insights from Medicus AI's CEO Dr Baher Al Hakim on their recent investment:
Q: Is this your 1st round of investment as a Company? How did you manage to convince the key investors to participate based on an idea?
A: This is our 3rd round. When we raised the 1st round back in 2016, we convinced our investors based on a great and experienced team, a vision that aims to impact healthcare globally and a strong early prototype.
Q: How many people are you in the founding team and does the team have start-up experience before?
A: Founding members include Dr Baher Al Hakim our CEO, Nadine Nehme our Chief Science Officer, Makram Saleh, our head of product and then once we moved to Europe we added Verena Kretschmann, our head of operations, Francisco Vega, our head of new markets and Mouhamad Kawas, our head of development. The team bring several years of experience in their specialty and/ or building other products and companies.
Q: What kind of talent are you looking to acquire to grow your team?
A: Almost in all departments! We’re hiring, from medical, research and tech, over business and operations to product & design. Visit www.medicus.ai/jobs for all open positions.
Q: Scalability is often a major challenge for startups across the region. What type of obstacles did you encounter while scaling into new countries and what tips would you give to other MENA startups who are looking to go global?
A: As we developed Medicus and explored relevant markets to our industry, we found it challenging to really understand local markets and their challenges without being there, or truly get an understanding of what keeps decision-makers up at night. No amount of research can replace being there on the ground. Whatever market you want to move into, you need to make an effort to be there physically, and to be there often. Participate at events, talk to clients and peers, look at building a local presence by hiring a local team. Scaling fast requires hiring quickly, and it can be really challenging to hire if you are focused on a specific geography; instead focus on hiring for specific skills and experience wherever talent may be. This will help you build regional clusters. Careem and Souq are great examples of how a company can scale successfully.
To read the full press release click HERE.