19th September 2018, Bangalore, – Bangalore-based Cyclops Medtech is revolutionizing the neuro -vestibular diagnostic space with a novel solution based on the established science of eye tracking. The startup recently raised USD 1 Million from marquee VC firm Unitus Ventures and others to further augment its role as a leader in the space and rapidly scale up its installations base in India and rest of Asia. The round also saw participation of it’s earlier investor Mr. C P Bothra.
BalanceEye, a clinical diagnostic platform making Neuro-Vestibular diagnosis affordable and accessible
Using eye tracking technology, Cyclops Medtech’s BalanceEye product has made diagnosis of various neuro-vestibular conditions easy and accurate and reduced the price to a fraction of that of existing imaging technologies. Dizziness and other symptoms of multiple neuro-vestibular disorders (including vertigo, migraine and balance) manifest in the pupil movement. Cyclops’ platform captures, measures and analyses these manifestations, helping clinicians determine their root cause in order to plan appropriate early stage treatment.
Prior to the launch of Cyclops’ product BalanceEye, India had very few dizziness and balance assessment platforms and most were located in metros or tier 1 cities. The company is a market leader in its space with close to 62% of the market share.
BalanceEye’s scale-up is largely concentrated in tier 2, 3 and 4 cities including towns such as Morbi, Miraj, Islampur, Madurai, Trichy, Bargarh and Shillong. The product also has the ability to offer remote diagnosis, which augments clinical care in regions where physician availability is sparse and expands clinical reach.
Cyclops’s current customer base comprises of individual ENT, Neuro and Audiology clinics as well as large hospitals and medical colleges like Sakra World, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences etc.
Eye tracking based diagnostic solutions are portable, affordable, accurate and non invasive
“Eyes are windows to a patient’s neuro-vestibular world. Pupil based diagnosis is portable, affordable, accurate and completely non invasive. It helps millions of people in emerging economies to access cutting edge diagnosis at the right time and right cost. We intend to use funds from this round to further augment our leadership position by rapidly increasing the installation as well as subscription base in India as well as few other emerging markets. By achieving the milestone of 100 installations, we already have the highest base in India. We would also fast-track development of our stroke screening product and launch it next year.” said Mr. Niranjan Subbarao, Co-founder, Cyclops Medtech.
“We met Cyclops Medtech through LetsVenture and were impressed with their vision of transforming balance disorder diagnosis through affordable and easily accessible technologies. What attracted us the most to Cyclops’ was its ability to maintain a low price for its product while providing easy to use cutting edge technology, making the solution relevant to both developed and developing markets. This aligned with our mission to support innovative healthcare businesses that have intrinsic capability to create a significant social impact.”, said Milind Shah, Partner at Unitus Ventures.
“We are very bullish on low cost medical devices being built out of India, and have seen a spike in the demand for such startups by investors. Cyclops uniquely applies machine learning on top of eye movement data collected by their hardware to predict diseases like vertigo, and can have immense impact in developing countries. Having done 150 deals with angel investors in the last 4 years, we started working actively with institutional investors in 2018. We now work with over 60 institutional funds from India and Singapore and are glad to have our first closure with Unitus Ventures.“ said Shanti Mohan, Founder and CEO at LetsVenture.
Way Forward: Rapidly scale up product installations in India and neighbouringmarkets
In the coming years, Cyclops Medtech plans to to scale up BalanceEye installations across India, primarily in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. In addition, the company will also focus on capturing other markets in Asia with a target of 1,000 installations over the next 5 years. Other than BalanceEye, the company is also working on 3 other products in the neuro-vestibular space.
