Babylon Health, an AI-based health services development company, has raised $550 million at a valuation of over $2 billion. The company has revealed its plans to expand its R&D to diagnose more critical and serious condition of patients.
The organization has also announced its plans of using the fund in expanding its business across US and Asia. This has been considered as the largest raised fund for providing digital health services in Europe and US.
Babylon Health develops AI-based health services, including a chatbot that has been used by the UK’s National Health Service to help diagnose ailments.
The Founder and CEO of Babylon, Dr Ali Parsa states, “Our mission at Babylon is to put accessible and affordable healthcare into the hands of everyone on earth.” She added, “This investment will allow us to maximise the number of lives we touch across the world. We have a long way to go and a lot still to deliver. We are grateful to our investors, our partners and 1,500 brilliant Babylonians for allowing us to forge ahead with our mission. Chronic conditions are an increasing burden to affordability of healthcare across the globe. Our technology provides a solid base for a comprehensive solution and our scientists, engineers, and clinicians are excited to work on it. We have seen significant demand from partners across the US and Asia. While the burden of healthcare is global, the solutions have to be localised to meet the specific needs and culture of each country.”
A number of financial and strategic investors have participated in the fund round including a large US-based health insurance company (name of the company is not disclosed by Babylon), Kinnevik and Vostok New Ventures, Munich Re’s ERGO Fund, and PIF (Public Investment Fund from Saudi Arabia).
Babylon shared that it faces patient interaction at a rate of 1 patient at every 10 seconds or around 4000 clinical consultations per day. It also disclosed that it has completed 1.2 million consultations digitally with 4.3 million consultations globally. Babylon has achieved around 160,000 five-star ratings for its prescriptions to date.
