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| India's Forus Health raised $8 million to market its 3nethra eye scanner.--Courtesy of Forus Health |
Indian med tech startup Forus Health raised $8 million in Series B cash to expand the use of its 3nethra device, a low-cost eye scanner designed to help diagnose ophthalmic ailments in under-served regions.
With the latest raise, the Bangalore-based company plans to double down on the marketing of its portable device, which noninvasively screens for diabetic retinopathy, cataracts, glaucoma, cornea problems and refractive errors in a 5-minute scan. Those 5 ailments lead to 90% of India's cases of blindness, according to Forus, and the device is outfitted with a cloud-based analytics platform that allows it to be used miles away from diagnostic labs.
The company wants to use 3nethra on 20 million patients in the next three years, and its new cash will pave the way to get there, CEO and co-founder K. Chandrasekhar said.
"Acceptance from the ophthalmic fraternity and encouragement from our marquee investors motivate us to strive towards fulfilling Forus' mission," Chandrasekhar said in a statement. "This investment will be crucial in helping us achieve scale through strengthening our supply chain and sales networks, as well as developing new products from our world class R&D facility in Bangalore."
Asian Healthcare Fund led the round, which brings Forus' total haul to $13 million since its 2010 foundation. Previous investors Accel Partners and IDG Ventures India also contributed to the round.
- read the release