Prosperia, the Mexican startup that offers B2B services for pre-diagnosis through artificial intelligence (AI) to prevent illnesses caused by chronic diseases, raised US$2 million in a seed round. This was financed by the new Swedish fund focused on healthcare companies, Cardo Health, Cristina Campero, CEO and co-founder of this healthtech, told Contxto.
Two and a half years after starting operations and offering free services for a year as a pilot, Prosperia has already raised around US$2.25 million. With the new capital, the company will seek to double its growth by 2022, perform 10,000 pre-evaluations per month (a figure previously achieved in one year), and have a presence throughout the country.
“Part of this capital will also allow us to develop new technological solutions to provide more comprehensive care to patients through technology,” said the CEO.
Alejandro Noriega, an expert in the application of AI in healthcare, and Cristina Campero, who studied pharmacological chemistry and has been a consultant in the healthcare field, say that they created Prosperia in January 2020 to expand access to healthcare services in Latin America.
Noriega and Campero see a vast market opportunity in the country and the region since “there is a great need and backlog of these services.”
According to Prosperia’s CEO, the company has focused on the prevention of blindness, which becomes a consequence of chronic diseases such as diabetes.
This condition is one of the most frequent in Mexico: it is the third leading cause of death, preceded by heart disease and COVID-19, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI).
The company is working in Mexico with companies such as Devlin (an optical eyewear company), which already concentrate on a population at risk of developing some ophthalmological pathology due to diabetes or hypertension, and people over 60 years of age.
What services does Prosperia offer its customers? The healthtech has two products: a risk calculator, which are intelligent questionnaires that patients can fill out online only. It determines the person’s risk of developing diabetes, hypertension, or an ophthalmological condition.
The other product is an eye health assessment. It is done using a fundus camera that allows a picture of the retina to be taken without any discomfort. The digital images are analyzed on the platform with Prosperia’s AI algorithms, which recognize possible damage.
Campero explains the platform’s algorithms work similarly to Facebook’s face recognition algorithms when it suggests you tag a friend in photos. According to some tests they conducted, she also commented that these pre-evaluations have a 95% effectiveness rate and 6% more than that of an ophthalmologist.
What’s next for Prosperia?
Currently, the startup offers its services in more than 100 locations in Mexico City. Among its largest clients are Devlin, Diabesmart, Laboratorios Similares and Oftalmología Salauno.
Prosperia also has an alliance in Ecuador with the company Doctos and is exploring opportunities in Peru and Brazil as a distributor. They also plan to open operations in Guadalajara and Monterrey and expand to other Latin American countries.
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