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Interview with Aviel Blumenfeld, CEO & Co-Founder of IMedis
By Erika Wu, Business Development Representative, LSN |
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Aviel Blumenfeld is the CEO & Co-Founder of IMedis, an Israeli-based company that is creating a comprehensive quality management platform for radiology departments using ground-breaking AI technology to improve clinical outcomes, reduce risks of wrong diagnosis, and increase efficiency. IMedis’ solution uses a unique combination of image analysis and text analysis using AI for the detection and surfacing of various failure points throughout the radiology workflow. In addition, IMedis has a strong and cohesive team and is backed by a leading digital health VC. With a growing pipeline of collaborations in pilots, the company is exactly at the deflection point for using digital health for promoting quality-based healthcare. Aviel has worked in the medical devices field for 15 years in various positions including clinical applications specialists, software engineer, algorithm engineer, product manager and VP of R&D. At IMedis, Aviel handles management, strategy, operation, business development and fundraising.
Erika Wu (EW): IMedis pitched at the Innovator’s Pitch Challenge at RESI AI, January 2021 and Digital RESI, March 2021. What are you currently doing to grow IMedis and where is the company right now?
Aviel Blumenfeld (AB): IMedis is focusing on its go-to-market strategy and has already had several first early adopters in the US and UK starting to use Duali-Q for surfacing actionable missed findings in radiology reports. We expect to receive our first FDA clearance for our clinical offering by early 2022 and to start accelerating our commercial activity and growth of the company. Later this year we are planning to have our Series A-round in order to support the early stage of commercialization of the company, expedite development of new solutions and regulatory approvals.
EW: How would you describe AI?
AB: Professionals’ best assistance.
EW: As many were in your shoes at one point, what are some challenges you’ve learned from? Can you provide any advice, and how has your findings impacted your plan moving forward?
AB: In every conversation, you can learn something new, so keep close relationships with your potential customers, users and partners to better understand their needs and motivation. Early stages of a startup company are very fragile. When the pandemic started we were afraid that we would completely lose the attention of our target customers in the US while they were focused on treating COVID patients and significantly reducing their capacity of radiological examinations. We adopted our go-to-market strategy quickly and approached a new geographical market in the UK as we recognized the NHS which strengthened its digital adoption and openness to new technologies. The benefits of our solution are, first of all, for the patients with improved health outcomes, but also for large health systems by promoting early detection of life-threatening diseases — this is why we see a great potential in the UK as well as with large health systems in the US. We are aiming to keep developing our platform to cover more and more potential failure points and to offer the first in kind comprehensive solution for quality assurance in radiology.
Learn more about IMedis and connect with AI investors at Digital RESI AI (September 16-17)!
