AI MedTech pioneer Harrison.ai is eyeing global expansion into new markets like the United States after closing one of the largest ever Series C funding rounds for an Australian tech company.
The Sydney-based company announced the capital raise on Wednesday, ending speculation after the National Reconstruction Fund tipped in a $32 million equity investment last month.
The funding round, which follows a $129 million Series B in 2021, was co-led by investors Aware Super, ECP and Horizon Ventures, with participation from new investors, including Ord Minnett and Wollemi Capital Group.
Existing investors, including Blackbird Ventures and Alpha JWC Ventures, also returned for the raise, which puts Harrison.ai’s current valuation at more than $387 million, up from $208 million in 2021.
Founded by Dimitry Tran and Dr Aengus Tran in 2018, Harrison.ai has built its own large language model (LLMs) for reading X-rays and CT scans, including one that has proved twice as effective as models developed by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google.
Annalise.ai, its first AI-based radiology solutions, which has been the subject of controversy over the use of private medical data, was trained on a dataset of 520,000 chest X-rays, and is in use in more than 1,000 healthcare facilities across 15 countries.
The company plans to use the new funding from the raise – one of the largest in the medical AI space globally over the last year – to continue developing its products and to expand into the US.
It will also be used to grow its presence in the Asia-Pacific region, having committed to retain its operational base in Australia, as well as the United Kingdom, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
“This funding marks a significant milestone, enabling us to improve patient outcomes in even more diagnostic areas on a truly global scale,” Harrison.ai co-founder and chief executive Dr Tran said.
In Australia, Harrison.ai solutions are available to one in every two radiologists, but Dr Tran envisions that AI-driven diagnostic advancements will soon be available “to every public hospital across Australia”.
“With the growing diagnostic backlogs in Australian hospitals, AI solutions like Harrison.ai are the unfair advantage clinicians urgently need to reduce the time to accurate diagnosis of cancer and other critical illnesses, enhancing patient outcomes.”
Aware Super portfolio manager, direct equities Alvin Chan said the super funds’ investment in Harrisonai will “not only seek to generate strong returns for our 1.1 million members but make incredible contributions to… healthcare communities”.
“Harrison.ai’s ability to harness the rapidly evolving opportunities out of digitisation and AI is remarkable and we look forward to supporting their long-term application to the healthcare sector,” he added.
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