Intron Health, a pioneering Nigerian tech startup, has successfully raised $1.6M in a pre-seed funding round to enhance its speech recognition technology for healthcare workers in Africa. The funding round was led by Microtraction and included notable participation from Plug and Play Ventures, Jaza Rift Ventures, Octopus Ventures, Africa Health Ventures, OpenseedVC, Pi Campus, Alumni Angel, and Baker Bridge Capital. Additional support came from angel investors affiliated with global entities such as Google, CLEAR Global, NYU, and Optum.
The newly acquired funds will enable Intron Health to deepen its research, strengthen both cloud-native and on-premises capabilities, and expand its distribution network. The company also plans to recruit additional tech talent to support product development and market expansion, aiming to break new technological barriers and drive continued progress.
Founded in 2020 by Tobi Olatunji, Intron Health has introduced Africa’s first clinical speech recognition platform. This innovative platform boasts an impressive 92% accuracy rate in medical terminology, even with heavy accents. It significantly accelerates the documentation process for healthcare workers in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and Uganda, facilitating the adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHR) and alleviating administrative burdens.
Olatunji highlighted the impact of Intron Health’s technology, stating, “We are not only improving efficiency but also enhancing health outcomes and positively impacting hospital finances. With the backing of prominent global investors who bring deep knowledge and expertise, we are looking forward to our next phase of growth.”
The company’s speech recognition platform supports a diverse range of African languages and accents, addressing the gap left by global advancements in voice technology. Intron Health has developed Africa’s largest clinical speech dataset, comprising over 3.5 million audio clips from 288 accents, contributed by 18,000 individuals from 29 countries. This extensive dataset has allowed the company to fine-tune its algorithms for minimal adjustments in various hospital settings.
Intron Health’s technology is set to revolutionize healthcare documentation and is poised to explore further applications of localized voice technology across Africa and beyond. The company’s solution promises to enhance productivity and accuracy in clinical environments and could potentially extend its benefits to other sectors.
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