Shahram Seyedin-Noor

AI and Med Tech in Focus   AI System Developed to Identify Pathology in Tissues Engineers at Washington State University have developed an AI tool that uses images of human and animal tissue to detect abnormalities faster and more accurately than people. The AI algorithm was trained using images from past studies that involved kidney, testes, ovarian, prostate, breast and lymph node abnormalities. The new model detected disease in minutes—current processes take humans several hours and require specialized teams to check each other’s work. It was also found to be more accurate, sometimes detecting instances that humans had missed. The engineers designed the system to handle the processing load of the high-resolution gigapixel images by breaking them down into smaller tiles but still retaining the overall context of the tissue sample—akin to the zoom feature on a microscope or phone camera. Aside from getting diagnostic results more accurately and quickly, the new system also shows promise in epigenetics (the study of molecular processes that change gene behavior without changing underlying DNA). Epigenetic researchers can perform analyses and get results that used to take a year or more in just a couple of weeks. VC Investors are always adjusting their "Play Book" with a variety of options for investing. Mikal Ventures is one of those alternatives, offering curated solutions to real world problems. Reach out if you have questions on how we can be of assistance and bookmark https://mikalventures.com/ for additional insights and information.

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If you work in tech transfer this is a good read-in on how our diligence tech can assess and evaluate assets with minimal inputs. The best way to learn more is to see it live! Reach out to me directly to learn more!

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Hot off the pre-print server – an important publication authored by the Atropos Health team exploring the performance of LLMs in answering real-world clinical questions. LLMs excel at summarizing and contextualizing existing literature, but cannot generate de novo medical evidence today. The results of the study highlight performance gains attributable to injecting novel, relevant, and up-to-date medical evidence into LLM-powered clinical decision support systems. Brigham Hyde Nigam Shah Saurabh Gombar Read the study here: https://lnkd.in/ecuU25Pq

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This is just incredible. Neal Ghosh's demonstration of how #VentureIQ takes deeply technical and complicated content across a range of industrial use cases and ages/stages through an AI-generated conversational podcast (a la #notebookLM) is really mind-blowing. Check out his post, below, and if you haven't seen VentureIQ, yet, let's get you set up to learn more. You can visit VentureIQ.ai or DM any of us over here to book a demo!

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Excited for this one. Congrats to Alex Cohen and Hello Patient on their seed round announcement. Hello Patient stands to change the communication paradigm between patients and providers forever. Their generative AI call agent technology is tackling the tremendous admin burden of patient facing comms (scheduling, follow ups, referrals, prescription refills, etc). Massive opportunity and we think Alex and his team are expertly positioned to become market leaders. Max Ventures is thrilled to co-lead the seed round with 8VC and Bling Capital A great quote below from Alex highlighting the concept of "service as a software". Healthcare is a heavily service oriented industry - so the opportunity for step change is even more profound. The startup's approach is part of a paradigm shift where AI companies are offering service as software. "I'm a big believer that the right way to do this is through a managed services business. We're not building SaaS. I believe we can do this services as software where what was traditionally a services business now has software margins because I don't have to go employ a whole bunch of people to do the services under the hood," Cohen noted. https://lnkd.in/ehNN2AmW

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Excited to announce Frist Cressey Ventures' investment in Qualified Health and privileged to partner w/ SignalFire, Healthier Capital, Town Hall Ventures and others!   Healthcare costs are increasing at a faster rate than ever before, with the US spending nearly twice as other wealthy countries and still ranking bottom in outcomes. It's a story you've all heard - - US healthcare is known for astronomical inefficiencies, waste, workforce supply constraints, fragmented access, appalling patient experiences, and driving patients and businesses into debt.   Yes these problems present opportunities. But opportunities are limited to the system's appetite for change, desire and incentive to try something new and the innovation available. At FCV we believe we've hit the trifecta with Generative AI. Generative AI has given us truly transformational tools in the toolkit and the healthcare ecosystem is demanding to absorb its benefits. This perfect collision of supply and demand means healthcare is poised for big change.   Generative AI is everywhere, it's buzzy, it dangles hope and opportunity. But many things need to be true for the Gen AI transformation in healthcare to take hold, such as but not limited to:   💡 Patient lives and data need to remain safe: We believe in a highly regulated and human life-touching sector such as healthcare we must ensure Gen AI can drive to unrivalled savings and improvements in the quality of care WHILE not putting patient lives or data at risk.   💡 Systems need to own their utilization of Gen AI: We believe systems will use some hybrid of external partners and homegrown solutions but importantly will want full control of data provisioning and utilization as well as the ability to solve an unlimited number of nuanced issues and not cookie cutter algorithms.   💡 Costs need to be looked at on an enterprise level: We believe the speed of innovation in Gen AI means costs will continue decreasing dramatically but at an enterprise level this will still not be a small detail. Systems will want the ability to understand costs and delegate as needed for the outcomes desired at the organizational level.   Enter Qualified.   We knew when we met Justin Norden, MD, MBA, MPhil and team we were standing in front of changemakers. These individuals have lived and breathed the true application and implementation of Generative AI far before we were asking ChatGPT to write our emails. In fact, if you’ve ever driven in a Waymo you’ve benefited from past products this team has built.   Qualified Health is on a mission to enforce governance in Gen AI, allow systems to rapidly build for their needs, monitor and make decisions for all GenAI (homegrown and external) and accelerate the value the sector can glean from these new technologies.   Huge shout out to William T., Tommaso Auerbach and Jamie Kuntz for their hard work!

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🧩 One thing we've noticed with #VentureIQ technology is how well it can distill and communicate complex technical material 🧩 Whether it's a #deeptech venture, a novel #AI application, or even a patent submission, we can quickly distill the business and strategic implications for investors...and sometimes even the founders/PIs themselves! 🤯 Based on our work so far, the tech can handle a wide array of research areas and technological sectors -- anything from blockchain algorithms to vaccine development. It handles the nuance of the field, the specific terminology, and extracts the key concepts which matter for venture-building. 🤓 To demonstrate, I took a patent I helped write with Eric Laber on reinforcement learning. I ran it through #Ventureiq to build a commercial assessment (key differentiators, target markets). Then for fun I had #NotebookLM make a podcast out of it. I've uploaded the result it here (DM me if you'd like the actual report): https://lnkd.in/eiTejsny This is more than just automation or streamlining operations - it's about unlocking clarity and insight when it was previously unattainable, and the ability to do it over and over again no matter the sector or vertical. Interested in more info? DM me so we can chat.

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Excited for DCVC portfolio co Alta Resource Technologies to emerge from stealth! The design space of biology is many orders of magnitude larger than inorganic chemistry, and Alta uses it to massively reduce the cost of extracting rare earth metals. https://lnkd.in/g_q5UwRF

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Exciting to see startups aiming to use AI to discover chemicals, materials, drugs, etc. Semi companies have taken notice: AMD is investing in and Cadence is acquiring them. Semi/EDA companies have broken out by becoming critical path, whether it’s through critical software, packaging, IP, design kits from foundries, or user communities. Aside from just making it easy to make new materials, these “AI for making X” companies also need to articulate a vision as to how they can establish monopolistic positions in their industries.

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On the surface, tech transfer operations (e.g. the process of transferring research and IP into commercialized opportunities) and early-stage startups may seem quite different. But when we at 9point8 Collective dug a little deeper, there was tons of overlap which speaks to the essence of zero-to-one development: 1️⃣ Innovation Focus: both tech transfer and early-stage startups aim to commercialize new technologies or solutions that can address real-world problems or create new opportunities. There is no blueprint to follow. 2️⃣ Intellectual Property: tech transfer ventures usually come with robust IP portfolios, including patents and trade secrets, and early-stage startups often focus on developing and protecting their IP to create a competitive advantage. Leverage IP as an asset is a key part of the strategy. 3️⃣ Market Potential: both tech transfer and early-stage startups target markets with high growth potential. They often aim to disrupt existing industries or create entirely new market segments, so targeting the right markets is essential. 4️⃣ Risk Profile: both types of ventures carry extreme risk and ambiguity due to the uncertainties associated with bringing new technologies or business models to market. With all this overlap, we innovated different versions of our diligence and assessment tool #VentureIQ to focus on tech transfer. Instead of a pitch deck as the raw inputs, we used patent filings instead. We wanted to see if our tech could generate credible insight on how raw technologies can be commercialized. The results have been pretty solid so far. From a single patent filing, we can extract technology readiness levels, target markets, competitors and benchmarks with similar technology, and even sources of public and private funding. From what our design partners have validated for us, these are monumental leaps in the development process -- saving thousands of dollars and weeks of time -- all done with #AI. Know of an interesting #techtransfer use case? Send me a DM so we can chat about it!

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At R7, we felt it was kind of silly for scientists to spend millions of hours per year, manually counting spores in a petri dish. We partnered with Reshape Biotech last year to provide a full-stack automation platform capable of streamlining everything from plate filling to diagnostics, slashing time-to-market by 10x and cutting costs by up to 70%. 🌟 Vision 🔬 : To build a new generation of lab equipment – and the infrastructure behind it – so that scientists and technicians can dramatically accelerate their work. Carl-Emil Grøn Magnus Madsen

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A SAFE and convertible note had a baby and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati was the midwife- out popped the D-SAFE! 👶🏽🎉 A new #climatetech funding instrument was announced by Elemental Excelerator last week. One of the company’s main goals is to support smaller, up and coming companies during the awkward “Scale Gap” phase between #VC funding and natural growth. It’s called the #DSAFE (Development Simple Agreement for Future Equity) and it aims to aid the process by giving companies a small amount of cash to overcome initial risks and expenses during the developmental stages of a product launch or company. How does it work? D-SAFE has a redemption clause meaning companies can choose to have their payments offered as a loan or convert to equity at the investor’s discretion. Funders and companies will have clear communication and expectations about where the money is going and how it will be applied to either the company or the projects at hand. Financiers and companies will work together with more #transparency, and that’s a great boon for #startups and VC alike. As of this month, Elemental has already invested using D-SAFE in eight different companies, including Dimensional Energy and Origen — both companies investing in innovative and out-of-the-box solutions to environmental issues! Seems like a win-win on the surface. What do you all think about the D-SAFE? Alfredo Coppola Momoka Ueda Tim Wagner Stephen D. Torres Olya Irzak Natsuho Toyama Noriya Tarutani Shin Ogawa

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Looking beyond #VC funding for your #startup? Aakash Shah of Wyndly (YC W21) reveals how he built a multi-million dollar #healthtech company using creative capital strategies. Learn how he leveraged Y Combinator's network and alternative funding methods to revolutionize allergy treatment. In case you missed it, you can watch the #FundraisingDemystified #podcast here: https://lnkd.in/eZT63YS4

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I'm so excited to continue supporting Prolific Machines, Inc., and the incredible Deniz Kent, PhD ,Max Huisman, and Declan Jones. Today's cellular biology processes are incredibly expensive, inefficient, imprecise, and sometimes purely ineffective. These processes are used from everything from making antibodies to treat diseases, to fermentation used to make high-value nutritional proteins in baby formula, to whole cuts of cultured meat. Prolific has developed a biology platform that leverages light to guide cell behavior and optimize performance over time using AI. By combining light, bioengineering, hardware, and AI in fundamentally new ways, Prolific can help pharmaceutical, nutritional, and therapeutics companies get to market faster, less expensively, and more efficiently — ultimately in hopes of helping improve outcomes — a mission any of us can get behind. Mark Cuban Peter T. Frederick Blackford Cooper Rinzler David Adelman Darco Capital Breakthrough Energy Michael Schulson Kevin Love Tobias Harris Breyer Capital Charles Besser Brennan Besser Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants https://lnkd.in/ea2TqdQk

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The (Healthcare) Ground Beneath Our Feet… This year it is likely that over $10 billion will be invested in the digital health sector – a robust amount, no doubt, but inconsequential when compared to the amount of capital tied up in healthcare real estate assets, which is estimated to be $1.2 trillion by Jones Lang Lasalle. Of that amount, approximately $790 billion is in the hospital sector while the remaining $490 billion is in medical office assets. It is estimated that there are 48.6k facilities with 3.4 billion square feet of healthcare real estate, 42% of which are owned by REITs and another 33% held by other private investment vehicles. Much of the digital health investment is meant to make the physical healthcare infrastructure more productive: greater operating efficiencies, greater patient throughput, more relevant personalized care models with better outcomes. As the healthcare system is being pushed to be more distributed to lower cost sites of care, accelerated now by the rapid proliferation of automation and AI capabilities, the potential impact on healthcare infrastructure assets will be profound. Thoughts on what that might look like... https://lnkd.in/eTfAdUbS #digitalhealth Flare Capital Partners

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AI in Focus  Wearable Camera Detects Injectable Drug Administration Errors Collaborative researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, University of Washington, Makerere University and Toyota Research Institute have developed a wearable camera that uses AI to detect injectable drug administration errors. The system used video data sets from cameras strapped to doctors’ foreheads in different operating rooms with different backgrounds and lighting conditions and focused on the physicians’ hands. Then using deep learning, they trained the algorithm to detect visual clues like vial and syringe shape, label color, and font size to determine what the drug was. Currently, errors happen when a wrong vial is used or the drug label in the syringe is incorrect (vial swap errors) or when the label is correct, but the clinician administers the wrong drug (syringe swap errors). Hospitals use bar codes to prevent these errors, but in high pressure situations, these safeguards sometimes are forgotten. Approximately 1.2 million patients experience errors in injectable medications annually, at a cost of about $5 billion. Using the AI camera system, vial swap errors were detected in 99.6% of cases where they occurred and syringe swap errors in 98.8% of cases.  The next step is for researchers to incorporate the new system into smart eyewear that can provide visual or auditory warnings before a drug is delivered. Further, the new system provides opportunities for automatic documentation of drug injection information and reduced manual record keeping. VC Investors are always adjusting their "Play Book" with a variety of options for investing. Mikal Ventures is one of those alternatives, offering curated solutions to real world problems. Reach out if you have questions on how we can be of assistance and bookmark https://mikalventures.com/ for additional insights and information.

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TLDR - if you’re a early-stage investor, builder or health care provider that believes the below facts... we at Conduit Venture Labs have a stealth venture in the oven w/ Krisna Bhargava, PhD (let's connect). 🦠 Environmental factors are responsible for ~90% of chronic disease. https://lnkd.in/gSJPGXVs 🥺 Primary care does not have the time nor education to screen environmental exposure. https://lnkd.in/gJ5GtHMV 🚀 Functional/integrative care is growing at ~23% CAGR but is unaffordable to most people. https://lnkd.in/gWwuChYk

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This week Mikal Ventures brings you a 4-week breakdown of the US capital market with an emphasis on the Mikal verticals. Over the 4-week period ending December 9, just under 590 new companies were added, resulting in 101,195 companies included in the US Health Tech, Med Tech, Fin Tech, AI Tech, and Ed Tech verticals. We continue to see a slowdown in overall activity in all verticals. US AI Tech again saw the greatest percentage growth in new companies at 12%, vs. the vertical average of 6% for the period. AI Tech also led the group in transactions and news articles. US Med Tech led in SEC Filings. Mikal Ventures publishes these stats on a rolling 4-week basis to provide a perspective on how the verticals and new startups move through time. We hope you find them informative and thought-provoking. VC Investors are always adjusting their "Play Book" with a variety of options for investing. Mikal Ventures is one of those alternatives, offering curated solutions to real world problems. Reach out if you have questions on how we can be of assistance and bookmark https://mikalventures.com/ for additional insights and information.

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Exciting news! We just sent out the inaugural newsletter for Future Frontier Capital, our pre-seed venture fund backing frontier tech startups. As I hit "send," I realized how launching FFC parallels the path of the founders we support. Starting FFC has required the same passion, perseverance, and self-belief that drive entrepreneurs. Just like a startup, getting a VC fund off the ground demands relentless hustle—building the brand, perfecting the pitch, and networking tirelessly. There are constant challenges that test your resolve and endless hours of unglamorous work behind the scenes. And perhaps most daunting - the self-doubt, wondering if you're crazy for attempting something so bold. Pushing through that negative self-talk requires unshakable faith in your mission. Raising this VC fund reminds me of starting our IP strategy and patent analytics firm two decades ago. It’s a powerful reminder of the perseverance, creativity, and resilience needed to turn an ambitious idea into reality. This experience makes us more empathetic partners, ready to support the founders we back. Our work is just beginning, and this inaugural newsletter underscores our commitment to supporting frontier tech startups every step of the way. #startups #VentureCapital #EmergingManagers #Entrepreneurship #InnovationMindSet

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