Investing in the future of women’s health: Sonio

Today, 1 out of 33 infants are born with a congenital malformation — and 50% of those are not detected. Fortunately, science and technology have advanced to the point where there is now the potential for fetal ultrasound professionals to reduce these figures.

This is why we are so excited to announce our €5m Seed investment in Sonio, alongside Elaia, Bpifrance and strategic business angels in the medical industry. Sonio is building the first-to-market AI software empowering practitioners during prenatal ultrasound scans to secure screening and optimize diagnosis. The fundraising will allow the team to focus on accelerating sales in Europe, preparing US market entry by getting FDA clearance, and embedding image recognition into the Sonio platform.

More precisely, Sonio has developed a SaaS medical software to assist practitioners in prenatal diagnosis through three products:

• 1) Routine: to ensure the care routine is adapted to each patient and their medical history
• 2) Detect: to optimize the quality of the captured images and allow the detection of potential pathologies
• 3) Diagnosis: to provide practitioners with exam guidance and rank probable pathologies among the more than 450 identified by Sonio

The company has already obtained the status of Clinical Decision Support tool of Class I which has allowed to strongly start commercialisation and already be used by numerous clinical and medical centers in France and Europe. They are currently already under regulatory processes to become Class IIA and FDA approved which would allow them to rapidly scale in the US. They are also under close discussions with the leading medical hardware manufacturers such as General Electrics Healthcare, Canon and Samsung to be distributed into their sonographers.

We first met Cécile Brosset, co-founder and CEO, in 2021. Over the past year, we’ve seen her and her co-founders Dagmar Nuber (Chief BD Officer), Rémi Besson (CSO), Deepak Prakash (CTO) and David Amouyal (CPO) execute at an almost impossibly quick rate. They have deep ties across the French and European health industry and have enlisted a strong technical team across product, engineering, and sales that are deeply involved in the health space. Moreover, Cécile and her team are honest and dedicated, and we are convinced by their ability to quickly scale an innovative business.

Women’s health diagnosis market in Europe (est. at $35Bn) is just getting started, and growing. We believe that our mission at OneRagtime is to invest in the health of generations to come, and we are convinced that pregnant women deserve better care and healthcare providers better help. This is why Sonio has an exhilarating road ahead to empower women’s health. After fetal and maternal medicine, Sonio plans to address gynecology and oncology, reproductive medicine and chronic gynecological conditions. We are thrilled to be their partner on the journey!

Stephanie Hospital Founder and CEO at OneRagtime:

“At OneRagtime, we have been seduced by Sonio’s vision to leverage AI to improve pregnant women’s health and empower practitioners in prenatal screening and diagnosis. We are proud to support the company in its roadmap and commercial expansion across Europe and the US. We are fully convinced by the team’s experience and ability to execute this innovative business and become the reference in prenatal care.”

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