Manchester-based Re:course AI, which is developing an artificial intelligence (AI) healthcare training simulator, has secured $4.3 million in seed funding in a round led by Par Equity and including Northern Gritstone, the GMC Life Sciences Fund By Praetura, Rob Wood (founder of STEM Healthcare) and the founders of Current Health.
Re:course AI was founded by CEO Dr. Scott Martin and CTO Dr. Maksim Belousov, who describe the company as the “flight simulator for healthcare and life sciences.”
Re:course AI said it is looking to expand its engineering team and enter new markets “at a time when the global healthcare industry must urgently address chronic staffing shortages, the accelerating pace of innovation in life sciences and expectations for improved patient outcomes.”
Already integrated into healthcare institutions in the US and UK, Re:course AI said it 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.”
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.”
Northern Gritstone CEO Duncan Johnson said: “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.”
Re:course AI 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 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,” said Re:course AI CEO Martin.
“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.”