Maker of the skin cancer checker app SkinVision has raised €3 million ($3.4M) as part of its late Series A/early Series B funding round, bringing the total amount raised to date to €5-€6 million. European pharmaceutical firm LEO Pharma led the round, with participation from prior investor and SkinVision majority shareholder Personal Health Solutions Capital, a Dutch investment firm focusing on consumer-centric digital health solutions.
The company is using a combination of a mobile app — available for iOS and Android — and a cloud-based service to allow users track changes to their moles using nothing but their smartphones. Said app has been downloaded some 200,000 times since launch back in 2011.
SkinVision rates moles using a simple traffic light system with red, orange or green indicating the level of risk.“Skin cancer grows chaotically and potential suspicious moles are identified based on signs of non-natural growth,” said SkinVision’s 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.”
The service looks at seven different criteria and will be further improved based on the continuous growth in the database, which currently exceeds 1 million pictures. And according to Uyttewaal, SkinVision is as good as the “average eye of a dermatologist”, adding that it’s the only such skin cancer detector app to have obtained CE certification in Europe.
Moles are rated using a simple traffic light system with red, orange or green indicating the level of risk. Users can store photos in multiple folders to track different moles over time.
The application has a free component but in order to use it to its full potential, SkinVision offers it as a subscription service.
The company is looking to use the funds to widen applications for its technology beyond moles and melanomas. Also it will help SkinVision expand into new geographical markets, and to try to establish stronger ties with national healthcare systems in select markets.
[Via: TechCrunch]