We are excited to announce our newest investment: Deepecho - a Moroccan AI medical imaging startup. They are building an intelligent ultrasound that assists in diagnosing, detecting, and preventing prenatal complications. Plug and Play is participating in the fundraising alongside our partners at UM6P Ventures.

Millennium Development Goal N°4: Child Mortality

Early neonatal deaths represent 73% of all postnatal deaths worldwide, and efforts to reduce this number have lagged behind other developmental goals set in this millennium. Fetal growth restriction (FGR) varies between 2.6 and 59.2% in Africa, where infant mortality rates are some of the highest globally. Diagnosing FGR is a complex and time-consuming process that requires a level of expertise unseen in over 60% of radiology departments in emerging markets. With 130 million babies born and 280 million ultrasounds performed annually, understaffed hospitals and lack of equipment significantly impact the accuracy and efficiency of FGR diagnoses and, therefore, infant mortality.

Building The Next Generation in Intelligent Ultrasounds

Deepecho is building software to prevent congenital disabilities as well as address premature births and low birth weights. They aim to democratize quality prenatal diagnoses by automating fetal ultrasound exams. This AI innovation tackles two of the most significant contributors to fetal mortality rates: FGR and abnormalities in amniotic fluid volume.

Their AI technology requires only three video loops with a probe to collect the data necessary to provide accurate ultrasounds. By carefully selecting the correct standard planes and measurements, they can create a highly simplified ultrasound test that mimics the work carried out by a trained sonographer. This development will make FGR diagnosis possible even with inexperienced sonographers and non-traditional healthcare settings.

Deepecho secured seven health center partnerships with some of Morocco's key public healthcare players. They have collected over 220,000 images on their database from 130 patients, the largest dataset and resulting in accurate diagnoses to date. In addition to Deepecho's five signed partnerships in the MENA region, they have partnered with Microsoft to work on making their algorithm available on the Azure Healthcare platform. They are as well working on formalizing distribution agreements in both Europe and the US with potential hardware partners.

Deepecho was founded by Youssef Bouyakhf, Ex JP Morgan & Macquarie London and co-founder of Morocco’s first AI Lab; Abdelhak Mahmoudi, CTO, Professor of Computer Science at Mohammed V University (Rabat, Morocco), whose research focuses on ML/DL in Computer Vision and NLP applied to Healthcare; and Saad Slimani, CMO, Radiology Resident at the Casablanca University Hospital whose passion is exploring the potential of AI in radiology and medicine.

The CEO is in collaboration with some of Morocco’s most prominent universities to make Deepecho the pilot project. This project is part of a wider national initiative and is in partnership with the Moroccan Health Data Hub. This hub collects data from 6 hospitals. The Deepecho team includes radiologists, computer science experts, machine learning, and data professionals united by their passion for advancing this innovation.

Conclusion

Deepecho was created to tackle a huge problem in emerging markets. Their unique approach unifies all parts of the healthcare system. Plug and Play is excited to collaborate Youssef Bouyakhf and his team in this venture, and we look forward to forming part of their journey to transform prenatal health worldwide.