Sonrai Analytics, an emerging global innovator in AI Cloud Data Analytics, today announced a ‘seed plus’ funding round of £2.175 million to accelerate the global adoption of its technology. The investment will help Sonrai, a spinout from Queen’s University, reach more companies globally to translate precision medicine’s complex multi–omics data into real insights leading to better–personalised treatments for patients.
The funding round was led by Forward Partners, a leading venture capital firm in London specialising in the tech sector. QUBIS, Techstart Ventures, Co–Fund NI (managed by Clarendon Fund Managers), and Angel Investors also participated in the round.
Sonrai Analytics, CEO, Dr Darragh McArt said: “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. We are delighted to welcome Forward Partners to the board and feel their commercial insights will help drive the business to increased success.”
Brian McCaul, CEO of QUBIS, which is the commercialisation arm of Queen’s University Belfast commented ‘This funding round marks a new chapter in Sonrai’s success story. The company’s further expansion into international markets is an exciting development and I congratulate, Darragh, Deva and their team on this latest achievement.’
Luke Smith, Investment Partner at Forward Partners said: “We’re delighted to back Sonrai on the next stage of their growth to become a leading precision medicine platform. At Forward, we’re excited by companies that apply cutting–edge AI to solve big problems and make new discoveries. We’ve 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.”
Sonrai will invest in sales and marketing efforts to rapidly scale product adoption by precision medicine companies. Accordingly, Sonrai will expand its Data Science and Engineering teams with plans to hire an additional eight people by the end of 2022.
Today, Sonrai Analytics has successfully placed its platform with key healthcare businesses across the EU and the US and is entering further key partnerships that will scale operations commercially.
Sonrai also has several oncology AI markers on a path to regulatory assessment and counts Roche and the NHS among their exemplar partners.