Re:course AI, the Manchester-based leading conversational AI learning and assessment platform for healthcare professionals, has secured £3.5m ($4.3m) in seed funding.
The round was led by Par Equity and included Northern Gritstone, the GMC Life Sciences Fund by Praetura, Rob Wood, founder of STEM Healthcare, and the founders of Current Health.
Re:course AI plans to use the investment to expand its engineering team and grow globally.
Already integrated into healthcare institutions in the US and UK, Re:course AI will develop the skills of doctors and nurses at scale, eventually producing new clinicians autonomously using generative AI models to give digital humans and virtual tutors the ability to hold natural conversations with healthcare professionals.
Re:course AI was founded by Dr Scott Martin, CEO, and Dr Maksim Belousov, CTO, who describe the company as the ‘flight simulator for healthcare and life sciences’.
CEP Dr Martin said: “The aviation industry is another sector where safety is of paramount importance, and it has led the way in demonstrating the value of simulated training to maintain and update the skills of pilots.
“We believe AI will augment, not replace, the healthcare workforce of the future and we have already demonstrated in our customer implementations that Re:course AI can be the flight simulator for medical training.
“We are delighted to receive the backing of our investors, as we are keen to expand our team to respond to growing global demand for our digital human platform.”
Aidan MacMillan, senior investment manager, Par Equity, said: “Re:course AI has the potential to disrupt how the healthcare professionals of the future are trained, as the demand for virtual AI-based training is growing.
“The medical and AI capability within Re:course AI has enabled a unique approach to training for healthcare and life sciences professionals which can handle a wide variety of real world scenarios. We are excited to be supporting Scott, Maksim and the rest of the Re:course AI team at this important step in their journey.”
It uses AI models and digital human avatars in virtual training exercises to provide hospital doctors, GPs, nurses and other healthcare professionals with realistic patient interactions and automatic feedback.
The AI-powered digital human platform can provide training on any scenario as Re:course AI has teamed up with clinical experts to build up a bank of dozens of avatars with different conditions covering every demographic, thus addressing issues around bias. Tutors can also support medical professionals examining multiple conditions, almost acting like a co-pilot to steer individuals through training.
Northern Gritstone CEO Duncan Johnson: “The strength of Re:course AI’s proposition and the interest it has attracted from the venture capital community underlines how dynamic the tech start-up scene is in the Manchester-Leeds-Sheffield region.
“Re:course AI builds on the strong tradition in artificial intelligence in Manchester that started with the ‘Father of AI’ Alan Turing. We are delighted to be supporting the company’s ambition to fundamentally improve healthcare training and show the commercial potential of the North of England on the world stage.”
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Sim Singh-Landa, head of the GMC Life Sciences Fund by Praetura supported by GMCA, Cheshire & Warrington LEP and Bruntwood SciTech, said: “The Re:course AI team has proven that their digital human platform can help healthcare professionals maximise the time they spend on their clinical development.
“Re:course AI put safety and ethics at the heart of their development process and have been welcomed by the healthcare community. At Praetura, we will be offering our ‘More Than Money’ support as this exciting Manchester-based team now looks to scale, helping connect them with industry professionals who can support the company’s growth.”