Techcrunch: Skin Cancer Checker App, SkinVision, Snags $3.4M To Move Beyond Moles
Can an app warn you that you might have skin cancer? Digital health startup SkinVision is using smartphone tech and vision algorithms to allow consumers to track changes to their moles. Users of its iOS and Android apps, which have been downloaded some 200,000 times since launch back in 2011, take a photo of a mole and the app then performs a visual analysis, with the aim of identifying suspicious growths such as melanoma.
“Skin cancer grows chaotically and potential suspicious moles are identified based on signs of non-natural growth,” explains CEO Dick Uyttewaal. “The algorithm within the online assessment reviews signs of non-natural growth of skin lesions and is based on an established mathematical methodology in biology called fractal geometry.
SkinVision is now announcing what a terms a late Series A/early Series B funding round of €3 million ($3.4M), bringing its total raised to date to between €5 million and €6 million. Since the initial app launch, the business has grown into what Uyttewaal terms a “solutions platform”.
Read more: http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/23/skinvision-series-a/
Mobile Health News: Leo Pharma leads $3.4M investment in melanoma app SkinVision
Amsterdam-based dermatology app company SkinVision has raised $3.4 million from pharmaceutical company Leo Pharma with contributions from SkinVision’s existing investor and majority stakeholder Dutch investment firm Personal Health Solutions Capital. The complany plans to use the funding to move its app’s capabilities beyond melanoma recognition and into other skin conditions. The company also expects to use the new funding to move into new geographical markets.
Read more: http://mobihealthnews.com/46267/leo-pharma-leads-3-4m-investment-in-melanoma-app-skinvision/
IB Times: Can smartphones replace your GP? New medtech apps put specialist knowledge in patient’s pockets
“I believe that GPs play a very vital role as the first point of contact for people when they become sick or worry about something,” Dick Uyttewaal, the CEO of SkinVision, told IBTimes UK. “But there is an awful lot of work that they currently do where they don’t add value and that could be replaced by technology.
Uyttewaal’s SkinVision app links a smartphone’s camera to an algorithm capable of detecting melanoma. A study published in the Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology found that the app was 81% accurate in recognising skin cancer, bringing “the average eye of a dermatologist” to a smartphone. “That could mean that certain people with a certain risk profile could be directly sent to a dermatology consultant instead of first being seen by a GP,” Uyttewaal said.
Read more & watch video: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/can-smartphones-replace-your-gp-new-medtech-apps-put-specialist-knowledge-patients-pockets-1513588#
SkinVision thanks everyone involved in the support of our app, so we can grow and fight skin cancer together.
