AlensiaXR, a technology spinoff from Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) in Cleveland, has raised an unspecified amount to accelerate the development and delivery of its holographic learning platform that uses mixed reality to teach anatomy to medical students.
The Series A equity raise was led by Sopris Capital, a New York City-based venture capital firm focused on technology-enabled health care solutions. The funding round included investments from the Healthcare Collaboration Fund, co-managed by JumpStart Ventures and University Hospitals Ventures, both in Cleveland; and the JobsOhio Growth Capital Fund in Columbus, Ohio.
AlensiaXR's HoloAnatomy Software Suite "revolutionizes anatomical instruction by leveraging advanced holographic technology, reducing the need for costly, resource-intensive cadaver labs," the Cleveland startup said in a statement.
The company's fundraising "marks a significant step forward in the transformation of medical education," added Mark Day, CEO of AlensiaXR and former leader of Microsoft’s global HoloLens business, in the statement. "Our investors understand the HoloAnatomy impact: delivering improved learning outcomes anywhere in the world."
By wearing Microsoft's HoloLens 2 augmented reality headsets, professors and students can access AlensiaXR's HoloAnatomy software to see holograms of systems and organs as they exist in the human body.
The software emerged from a vision by CWRU and Cleveland Clinic to establish a joint health education campus, which included the university's medical school, on the northern edge of the Clinic's main campus on Cleveland's East Side.
As building plans for the health education campus were made, interest in exploring the most advanced learning technology combined with an early introduction to Microsoft HoloLens led to a big change in how the CWRU School of Medicine teaches anatomy, according to the university.
The medical school's anatomy curriculum has moved from being based on cadavers to being based on digital "living anatomy," the university said. The first-in-kind mixed-reality medical anatomy education tool has been academically tested and validated.
"HoloAnatomy redefines anatomical instruction,” Mark Griswold, CWRU School of Medicine professor and faculty director at the university’s Interactive Commons, which developed the software, said in the statement. "CWRU launched AlensiaXR in early 2023 to accelerate product innovation, improve partner service and rapidly scale the potential of this extraordinary learning platform."
Based on pilot studies, HoloAnatomy enables medical students to learn anatomy twice as fast compared to cadaver dissection and to retain information 44% better when tested later, AlensiaXR said. HoloAnatomy software already is being used by more than 20 institutions worldwide.
AlensiaXR formerly was known as Ilumis.
