Bangalore-based Cyclops Medtech is revolutionizing the neuro-vestibular diagnostic space with a novel solution based on the established science of eye tracking. The startup recently raised $1 million from marquee VC firm Unitus Ventures and others to further augment its role as a leader in the space and rapidly scale up its installations base in India and rest of Asia. The round also saw participation of its earlier investor Mr. C P Bothra.
Using eye tracking technology, Cyclops Medtech’s BalanceEye product has made diagnosis of various neuro-vestibular conditions easy and accurate and reduced the price to a fraction of that of existing imaging technologies. Dizziness and other symptoms of multiple neuro-vestibular disorders (including vertigo, migraine and balance) manifest in the pupil movement. Cyclops’ platform captures, measures and analyses these manifestations, helping clinicians determine their root cause in order to plan appropriate early stage treatment.
Prior to the launch of Cyclops’ product BalanceEye, India had very few dizziness and balance assessment platforms and most were located in metros or tier 1 cities. Having achieved 100 installations in a short span of 16 months, Cyclops is changing that statistic. The company claims to be a market leader in its space with close to 62% of the market share. Moreover, Cyclops is significantly increasing access to diagnosis and timely treatment for the masses as well as reducing patients’ out-of-pocket expenses. BalanceEye’s scale-up is largely concentrated in tier 2, 3 and 4 cities including towns such as Morbi, Miraj, Islampur, Madurai, Trichy, Bargarh and Shillong. The product also has the ability to offer remote diagnosis, which augments clinical care in regions where physician availability is sparse and expands clinical reach.
Cyclops’s current customer base comprises of individual ENT, Neuro and Audiology clinics as well as large hospitals and medical colleges like Sakra World, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences etc.
“In the last 16 months more than 10,000 tests have been performed on BalanceEye platform and many alarming medical conditions like Midbrain infarct, cerebellar vermis atrophy, frontal meningioma, neurovascular cross compression, etc. have been detected. Many of these patients come from rural hinterlands of India,” says Dr. Srinivas Dorasala, Co-founder, Cyclops Medtech.
“We met Cyclops Medtech through LetsVenture and were impressed with their vision of transforming balance disorder diagnosis through affordable and easily accessible technologies. What attracted us the most to Cyclops’ was its ability to maintain a low price for its product while providing easy to use cutting edge technology, making the solution relevant to both developed and developing markets. This aligned with our mission to support innovative healthcare businesses that have intrinsic capability to create a significant social impact,” said Milind Shah, Partner at Unitus Ventures.
“We are very bullish on low cost medical devices being built out of India, and have seen a spike in the demand for such startups by investors. Cyclops uniquely applies machine learning on top of eye movement data collected by their hardware to predict diseases like vertigo, and can have immense impact in developing countries. Having done 150 deals with angel investors in the last 4 years, we started working actively with institutional investors in 2018. We now work with over 60 institutional funds from India and Singapore and are glad to have our first closure with Unitus Ventures,“ said Shanti Mohan, Founder and CEO at LetsVenture.
In the coming years, Cyclops Medtech plans to to scale up BalanceEye installations across India, primarily in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. In addition, the company will also focus on capturing other markets in Asia with a target of 1,000 installations over the next 5 years. Other than BalanceEye, the company is also working on 3 other products in the neuro-vestibular space.