How AI startup SigTuple became a cash-burning lab chain

SigTuple's low-cost device and AI tools were all set to speed up diagnostics in India. But an attempt at diversification resulted in an ill-advised foray into an immature direct-to-consumer diagnostics market

Edd Gent, 15 Jun 2020

SigTuple has been hailed as one of India’s top AI start-ups—its tech was to revolutionise diagnostics

Instead, in 2019, it made a drastic pivot to become a high-end diagnostics lab chain

Months after topping out at eight labs and 600 staff, the company is down to one lab and 200 employees

SigTuple blames Covid, but former employees and industry experts credit poor strategy and a lack of focus

A “To-Let” sign in the window of a shop is not unusual these days as businesses reel from the impact of the pandemic. But an abandoned Humain Health lab in HSR Layout, Bengaluru’s newest startup hub, has a more complicated backstory—its parent SigTuple, a promising startup, coming undone.

Founded in 2015, Bengaluru-based medtech startup SigTuple has raised more than $40 million on the promise of using artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse blood, urine and semen in pathology labs. The goal was to slash the cost of medical testing and solve India’s chronic shortage of pathologists by creating an affordable device that could automate the visual analysis of medical samples.

AUTHOR

Edd Gent

Edd Gent is a freelance science and technology writer based in Bangalore, India. He writes about engineering, computer science and biology and has a particular interest in the intersections between the three.

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