Transforming Medical Diagnosis with AI

In the rapidly evolving world of healthcare, the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) holds great promise for transforming medical diagnoses and improving patient outcomes. The growing trend towards healthier lifestyles, self-optimization, and the increasing availability of data has created strong momentum for more personalized healthcare. In this article, we delve into why we at xdeck invested in Floy, a startup revolutionizing the detection of rare diseases in radiology.

The promise of AI in healthcare

AI enables users to make sense of large amounts of data. This approach is particularly useful in healthcare where complex data points are manually analyzed by medical professionals – oftentimes under heavy time pressure. The result: Human errors in the form of wrong or overlooked diagnoses. The promise of AI: Enhance human knowledge and thereby improve diagnostic quality. The challenges of big data analyses are particularly relevant in radiology, where medical professionals only have a few seconds to scan medical images for any potential anomalies. It is not surprising that about 25% of all diagnoses are incorrect and many early signs for anomalies remain undetected. This is especially true for rare diseases that are easily overlooked, simply because doctors hardly ever come across them. Patients are aware of this and have the tendency to consult multiple doctors (second / third opinion) to maximize the chances of getting the right diagnosis. Yet, even when consulting multiple professionals, the diagnostic quality is still limited by individual expertise of the medical professionals. AI algorithms are trained on the cumulative knowledge of thousands of medical professionals. Given the intuitive use case, it is not surprising that the market for AI solutions in medical image analytics is growing at an impressive Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 45%. AI solutions have the potential to benefit all stakeholders: Better diagnostic quality for patients, more diagnostic certainty for doctors, and lower costs for health insurances as wrong diagnoses lead to unnecessary surgeries.

How Floy is revolutionizing the medical sector

Floy is not the first start-up to use AI in the analysis of medical images. Yet, their business model is distinct. Former competitors aimed to charge medical professionals for their service and forced them to adapt their long-standing workflows. As a result, many radiologists were neither willing to pay for solutions that they perceived as a threat to their diagnostic authority nor were they willing to adapt their ways of working. From the very beginning, Floy listened to those concerns and developed a more customer-centric business model. The Floy software is purchased by patients as a voluntary health service and the revenues are shared between Floy and radiologists. For patients, this solution not only improves diagnostic quality, it also eliminates the costs and mental strain of consulting multiple doctors. On an operational level, Floy integrates seamlessly into existing workflows and simply serves as a diagnostic assistant to radiologists. Radiologists themselves remain in charge of the diagnoses, which eases the concern of being replaced by software. In fact, Floy supercharges the individual knowhow of radiologists and provides them with an additional revenue stream. Through these additional revenues, also patients with statutory health insurance yield profits. Floy currently focuses on MR and CT images of the spine area, representing about 40% of all medical images. In the near future, they will expand to the head and knee areas, bringing the total coverage to more than 70%.

Why we invested in Floy

We recognized the strong potential of Floy and decided to invest in their vision. The founding team has a remarkable blend of business and technical knowledge, coupled with an impressive drive to succeed in the market. As in all of our investments, we look for founders who are very close to the needs of their customers. In the case of Floy, we were impressed by the innovative business model that, already at the time of our investment, resonated well with the needs of radiologists. In fact, when consulting a renowned radiology expert from our network during our due diligence process, this expert was so convinced of Floy that he decided to invest in the company himself. We have rarely seen such positive feedback from the market despite Floy still being in MVP stage at the time. The decision to invest in Floy was a natural fit for xdeck, as we share values and their vision for the future. The market for longevity is growing and Floy has the potential to prevent many diseases that result from wrong or overlooked diseases. How does Benedikt Schneider, Co-Founder of Floy, perceive our joint journey?

"xdeck has provided us with valuable introductions to some of our most important contacts and is always at our side as a competent sparring partner. Their support has made a significant contribution to Floy's progress to date, and not just financially." - Benedikt Schneider

We are proud to support the co-founder's Benedikt Schneider and Leander Maerkisch vision of maximizing human health. The future looks bright!