The European Investment Bank (EIB) wants to boost the growth of the Munich start-up Smart Reporting with a financial injection of EUR 15 million issued as a loan. The company, which was founded in 2014 and is active in the field of health technology (“Health Tech”), has developed medical documentation technology based on artificial intelligence (AI). It enables clinical data to be efficiently recorded, structured and processed.
With the software from Smart Reporting according to the EIB “completely evaluable and machine-readable findings” in hospitals and medical practices. Already today, the results of a patient examination in radiology and pathology can be analyzed more quickly and with higher quality and combined to form a diagnosis. It is possible to automate previous manual processes. So far, doctors have spent up to 40 percent of their working hours on documentation. Only three percent of the data collected in hospitals can be used for later evaluation – for example in the context of medical research.
“Strategic Importance”
The heart of the e-health specialist’s application is a voice-controlled, guideline-based documentation tool that doctors should be able to easily integrate into their workflow. Overall, EIB Vice-President Ambroise Fayolle was confident that the development was of “strategic importance for the digitization of the healthcare system”. Wieland Sommer, founder and co-CEO of Smart Reporting, announced that he intends to use the fresh capital to accelerate expansion “both into new markets such as the USA and Canada and into other fields of application” such as surgical documentation.
The money is supported by the InvestEU Corona aid program, which provides investment partners with an EU budget guarantee. This should increase their risk capacity and thus mobilize public and private investments. Aimed at fast-growing, innovative companies, the EIB’s venture debt facilities are designed to complement existing venture capital financing without diluting the founders’ stake.
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