Just seven months after raising $20 million from Goldman Sachs Merchant Banking Division and Healthcare Venture Partners, AI-based digital diagnostics startup Paige announced Thursday it closed on a $100 million Series C. The round was led by Casdin Capital and Johnson & Johnson Innovation, the strategic VC arm of Johnson & Johnson.
Paige was created to improve an area of medicine called pathology, which looks at the cause and effect of diseases like cancer by analyzing, for example, slides of tissue collected from a patient during a biopsy.
Normally, this process is pretty analog, but Paige’s software lets doctors share and view these slides digitally. The software also analyzes the samples and helps doctors make decisions based on its database of other tissue samples from previous cancer patients. Once a diagnosis is made, doctors can upload that information into Paige so it can be used to help diagnose another patient in the future.
When Built In spoke with Paige’s CEO Leo Grady in July, he said Paige’s capabilities had become increasingly important amid the remote work culture of the pandemic. Grady anticipated that it would remain a priority in cancer care going forward.
“Many [pathologists, hospitals and labs] are realizing that they need to make this transition and push to a digital workflow, so they’re looking at all of the different companies and providers that are able to provide a solution for them,” Grady said. “There’s only likely to be a few companies that define this field and Paige will be one of them.”
Looking ahead, Paige says it plans to hire another 70 employees this year, doubling its team. The company also plans to use the Series C to build more AI-based products in and out of oncology, and deliver those products to labs and doctors around the world.
“Bending the mortality curve on cancer is a humbling and critical goal requiring big data, big technology and big talent. Paige combines all three,” Eli Casdin, Casdin Capital’s chief investment officer, said in a statement. “This is a unique opportunity to transform data into a next generation of cancer diagnostics and therapeutics, with clear application beyond cancer.”
