$60 Million in Series B Funding

Overview

On April 24, 2017 Babylon Health , the U.K. startup that offers a digital healthcare app using a mixture of artificial intelligence (AI) video and text consultations with doctors and specialists, raised $60 million in new funding. The company says it plans to use the new capital to continue building out its AI capabilities, including offering diagnosis by AI (rather than a more simple triage functionality), which is pegged to roll out later this year.

Earlier this year, Babylon starting working with a number of health authorities in London to trial its AI-powered chatbot ‘triage’ service as an alternative to the NHS’s 111 telephone helpline that patients call to get healthcare advice and be directed to local and out-of-hours medical services. It built on top of the same AI-enabled symptom checker feature in the main Babylon app that was released last July and which the company says has provided medical advice to over 250,000 people to date.

Dr Ali Parsa, founder and CEO of Babylon, says in a statement: “Cutting edge artificial intelligence together with ever increasing advances in medicine means that the promise of global good health is nearer than most people realise. Babylon scientists predict that we will shortly be able to diagnose and foresee personal health issues better than doctors, but this is about machines and medics co-operating not competing. Doctors do a lot more than diagnosis: artificial intelligence will be a tool that will allow doctors and health care professionals to become more accessible and affordable for everyone on earth. It will allow them to focus on the things that humans will be best at for a long time to come.”

About Babylon Health 

Babylon delivers high quality healthcare via your mobile phone. Babylon employs only the very best doctors and provides them with rigorous industry-leading training. During video visits doctors listen and look carefully to diagnose you or your family member and then write prescriptions or refer you to a specialist if required. Patients rate each visit to ensure quality. Their mission is the total re-invention of healthcare. They believe technology can be used to give everyone, everywhere, affordable quality medical care.

Content Source

You can find more information on Babylon Health funding on Tech Crunch.

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