The Mayo Clinic is expanding its collaboration with Kansas City-based TripleBlind Inc. and was the sole investor in a seed extension round.
TripleBlind’s recent $8.2 million seed round was nearly five times oversubscribed, and Mayo contacted the tech startup a day after the round closed. TripleBlind wasn’t looking for additional investors, but Mayo’s brand profile and the opportunity for additional collaboration was something the company couldn’t pass up, TripleBlind CEO and co-founder Riddhiman Das told the Kansas City Business Journal.
TripleBlind’s technology allows enterprises to securely share regulated and private data, without decrypting it or introducing additional risk and liabilities. The startup’s technology also adheres to regulatory standards, such as HIPAA and GDPR.
Typically, working with third-party health care data can be a cumbersome, expensive and painful process, Das said. It can cost $1 million and $2 million per data set to anonymize the information and reach legal agreements. Another hurdle is how long it takes to start using the data, typically 18 to 24 months. TripleBlind’s technology, however, whittles the cost and can help entities gain access to data in weeks.
Although health care is starting to use artificial intelligence and machine-learning tools, the biggest barrier to widespread use are concerns around privacy and regulations such as HIPAA, Das said. And that’s where TripleBlind can play a key role and help cultivate the “next tidal wave of innovation.”
TripleBlind started working with Mayo last year and helped it secure third-party EKG and genetic data for developing, validating and deploying algorithms. TripleBlind now will help Mayo with a broader set of algorithms and data from departments such as cardiology and pathology.
The algorithms could be used for diagnosing diseases earlier in a patient and detecting patterns that humans can’t see. Having access to wider data sets can help reduce biases in the algorithms so they don’t underperform with genders or ethnicities. In the future, the algorithms could be used for drug discovery or in developing countries to give patients access to advanced medical care and diagnoses.
TripleBlind also recently landed a partnership with Switzerland-based DNA analysis company BC Platforms. The startup can help BC Platforms work with more institutions and access more data sets.
Partnerships like those with BC Platforms and Mayo only build more trust with TripleBlind, Das said. Its recent seed round also included a variety of notable players, such as Accenture Ventures, Okta Ventures and Wavemaker Three-Sixty Health.
“We’re really honored by the interest of such recognizable brand names that have chosen to bet on us,” he said. “We are excited about the potential of us going to market with these strategic customers and investors, which will only help us increase the awareness of TripleBlind as well as the trust in TripleBlind.”
