Ubenwa, a pioneering developer of diagnostic software for the rapid detection of medical anomalies in infant cry sounds, has raised $2.5 million in pre-seed funding led by artificial intelligence (AI)-focused Radical Ventures and AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio.
The round saw participation from returning investor AIX Ventures, a fund co-founded by AI researchers and entrepreneurs Pieter Abbeel and Richard Socher, and Google Brain’s Hugo Larochelle and Marc Bellemare.
“We are speeding up our research and development to complete the clinical validation of our technology in multiple markets including Canada/US, Brazil, and Nigeria. Also, we are launching a consumer app for parents to enable them to get deep insights from their infants’ daily cry activity,” Charles Onu, CEO and AI Lead, Ubenwa Health, said.
A graduate from Mila, Montreal’s AI research institute, Ubenwa is working with Montreal Children’s Hospital and paediatric hospital networks around the world, to build a platform for sound-based diagnostic tools, combining groundbreaking AI research and clinical insights.
According to the company, an infant’s cry is difficult to diagnose for both clinicians and parents. Babies cry for several reasons such as when they are hungry, exhausted or have colic- a condition where an infant who is not sick or hungry cries for more than three hours a day, more than three days a week, for more than three weeks.
However, a baby’s cry can also be a signal that more urgent care is required. Delayed diagnosis may lead to severe, long-lasting effects or fatality.
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Founded in 2014, Ubenwa has developed algorithms for cry activity tracking, acoustic biomarker detection and anomaly prediction, turning infant cries into clinically relevant insights and potential diagnoses.
“Supported by a strong clinical foundation, Ubenwa has developed a proprietary innovation for an underserved and important market. Deciphering a baby’s cry using machine learning can open up a range of possibilities in the consumer and clinical paediatrics market where demand for better digital products is only growing,” Sanjana Basu, an Investor with Radical Ventures, said.
The company’s first pilot on detecting neurological injury due to birth asphyxia showed about 40 percent improvement over APGAR scoring, the most common physical exam at birth.
“Ubenwa is building a diagnostic tool that understands when a baby’s cry is actually a cry for medical attention. Ultimately, our goal is to be a translator for baby cry sounds, providing a non-invasive way to monitor medical conditions everywhere you find a baby: delivery rooms, neonatal and paediatric intensive care units, nurseries, and in the home,” Onu said.
Ubenwa’s technology is based on a foundation of scientific research developed in close collaboration with Mila, and six hospitals in three countries, including Montreal Children’s Hospital, Enugu State University Teaching Hospital in Nigeria, Rivers State Teaching Hospital in Nigeria and Santa Casa de Misericordia in Brazil.
“Cry analysis has the potential to provide critical information for identifying babies with evolving brain problems. A non-invasive diagnostic tool of this nature would be a powerful clinical resource for paediatric medicine.
“We are thrilled to be collaborating with Ubenwa and realise this through well-controlled clinical studies,” Guilherme Sant’Anna, Neonatologist at Montreal Children’s Hospital and Professor at McGill University, said.
