Volvo invests in Israeli startup that links doctors with crash data

Seven seconds after a car crash occurs, emergency-room doctors and insurance companies alike may soon receive detailed information about injuries and damage sustained in the wreck.

That's the speed at which MDGo envisions processing time-critical data. The Israeli startup uses machine learning to meld the medical and automotive worlds.

Using sensors aboard almost all vehicles, the company says, it can gather data to measure the forces applied to occupants and vehicles, and infer the nature and severity of injuries -- information that helps first responders and physicians provide better treatment.

Automakers are increasingly interested in the technology.

Volvo Cars Tech Fund, the venture-capital arm of the carmaker, said Monday it has invested an undisclosed sum in MDGo. Last month, Hyundai Motor Co. inked a partnership with the startup to co-develop connected services surrounding medical information.

"The key part is getting the data out of the OEMs for us, and that's where this investment is validation for us," Shahar Samoelov, vice president of business development at MDGo, said in an interview. "We're trying to bring a new way of looking at what data in the vehicle can bring. It's beyond one niche OEM. It's something that can service the whole industry."

Immediate information on the nature of crash injuries could help first responders decide what kind of ambulance to dispatch to crash sites, which victims should be transported to the hospital, and provide ER doctors with insights on prospective internal injuries that can be hard to diagnose.

Insurance companies could benefit from such crash data because they'll have a direct understanding of what occurred in a crash, which helps reduce claims processing and potential fraud cases, says Itay Bengad, a doctor and MDGo co-founder.

"In a car crash, two different verticals -- medical and insurance -- suffer from the same problem," he says. "Both doesn't know what happened, and are dependent on a subjective report. So our job is to allow this vehicle to provide all the data needed to speak my language, a physician's language."

Three-axis accelerometers have been components in the antilock-braking systems on all cars since 2001, and that helps MDGo measure crash forces. Information on seat occupancy, seat-belt use and airbag deployments can also be harnessed from vehicle systems.

MDGo's algorithms have been trained on thousands of data points involving velocity, crash angles, vehicle type, occupant age and injuries to develop and refine projected injury types. A pilot project in Israel involving 250,000 vehicles remains ongoing.

Based in Tel Aviv, MDGo showcased its work last month at EcoMotion, an annual technology showcase in Israel that featured more than 600 startups. As many of those startups have turned their sights toward the automotive industry, automakers in turn have cast their attention toward Israel.

Including MDGo, Hyundai says, it has invested or partnered with eight Israeli companies through its CRADLE initiative, a scouting-and-investment project.

Volvo says it has been involved in a business accelerator called Drive in Tel Aviv since 2018, and that's where it found both MDGo and UVeye, another startup in which it has an investment. Both companies represent Volvo's first investments outside the U.S. and Europe.

For Volvo, the MDGo technology is a potential means to further burnishing a brand that has been built for decades around safety.

"MDGo's technology aims to do something that is close to our hearts, which is saving lives," said Zaki Fasihuddin, CEO of Volvo Cars Tech Fund.