CARPL, a San Francisco-based startup seeking to build a radiology artificial intelligence marketplace, has raised $6 million in seed money, leaders announced Thursday.
Software investor Stellaris Venture Partners led the funding round, with additional contributions from UnitedHealth Group, Bain & Co., LeapFrog Investments and others. Operating since 2021, CARPL.ai offers a vendor-neutral platform allowing radiologists to access, assess and integrate AI solutions into their practice.
Over the past two years, the company has onboarded more than 50 AI developers offering 100-plus applications. Current users include the Singapore Government, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Radiology Partners.
“We are democratizing radiology in the same way that automation and robotics revolutionized lab medicine, where a single pathologist signs out thousands of tests each day,” founder, physician and CEO Vidur Mahajan, MBBS, MBA, said in a Feb. 1 announcement. “We envision a future where CARPL creates ‘super-radiologists’—AI-enabled radiologists who are 10 times more productive than traditional radiologists.”
Mahajan previously worked at the family business, India-based Mahajan Imaging, which saw its revenue grow by 10 times, to $20 million, over the course of a decade. He came up with the idea while working under the guidance of his father and radiologist Dr. Harsh Mahajan.
CARPL said it plans to use the funds to expand the company’s team in North America and continue building up its technology. The company is able to offer a single user interface for radiologists, allowing them to accept, reject or refine AI outputs in one place.
“The volume of imaging scans show a steady 9% year-on-year growth, outpacing the growth in the number of radiologists at a mere 1.8%,” Alok Goyal, Partner at India-based Stellaris Venture Partners, said in the announcement. “Bridging this demand gap is a crucial challenge for healthcare providers, and we believe AI will be the key.”
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.