A company behind a 'flight simulator for healthcare and life sciences' has been backed by a £20m fund.
Manchester-based Re:course AI has secured $4.3m in seed funding in a round led by Par Equity.
The investment also included Northern Gritstone, the GMC Life Sciences Fund By Praetura, STEM Healthcare founder Rob Wood and the founders of Current Health.
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Re:course AI is aiming to develop the skills of doctors and nurses and eventually produce new clinicians autonomously using generative AI models to give digital humans and virtual tutors the ability to hold natural conversations with healthcare professionals.
The company was founded by chief executive Scott Martin and Maksim Belousov, who serves as its chief technology officer.
Dr Martin said: "The aviation industry is another sector where safety is of paramount importance, and it has led the way in demonstrating the value of simulated training to maintain and update the skills of pilots.
"We believe AI will augment, not replace, the healthcare workforce of the future and we have already demonstrated in our customer implementations that Re:course AI can be the flight simulator for medical training.
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"We are delighted to receive the backing of our investors, as we are keen to expand our team to respond to growing global demand for our digital human platform."
Aidan MacMillan, senior investment manager at Par Equity, said: "Re:course AI has the potential to disrupt how the healthcare professionals of the future are trained, as the demand for virtual AI-based training is growing.
"The medical and AI capability within Re:course AI has enabled a unique approach to training for healthcare and life sciences professionals which can handle a wide variety of real world scenarios.
"We are excited to be supporting Scott, Maksim and the rest of the Re:course AI team at this important step in their journey."
Northern Gritstone CEO Duncan Johnson added: "The strength of Re:course AI’s proposition and the interest it has attracted from the venture capital community underlines how dynamic the tech start-up scene is in the Manchester-Leeds-Sheffield region.
"Re:course AI builds on the strong tradition in artificial intelligence in Manchester that started with the 'Father of AI' Alan Turing.
"We are delighted to be supporting the company’s ambition to fundamentally improve healthcare training and show the commercial potential of the North of England on the world stage."
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"The Re:course AI team has proven that their digital human platform can help healthcare professionals maximise the time they spend on their clinical development" said Sim Singh-Landa, Head of the GMC Life Sciences Fund By Praetura supported by GMCA, Cheshire & Warrington LEP and Bruntwood SciTech.
"Re:course AI put safety and ethics at the heart of their development process and have been welcomed by the healthcare community.
"At Praetura, we will be offering our ‘More Than Money’ support as this exciting Manchester-based team now looks to scale, helping connect them with industry professionals who can support the company’s growth."
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