Our Investment in AssistIQ:
Uncovering Data-Driven Efficiencies in Healthcare with AI
StandUp Ventures is thrilled to announce our investment in AssistIQ’s $2.5M Seed Round. We led the round with participation from some wonderful syndicate partners including N49P, The Kale Fund, and a roster of several notable operator and healthcare executive individual investors.
The idea for Montreal-based AssistIQ initially came from the curious insights of a Harvard-trained thoracic surgeon, and Director of the Technology Innovation and Development Lab at the renowned Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM) Research Centre, Dr. Moishe Liberman.
Before a surgery or operation takes place, the supplies planned for use are opened and prepared in advance — this includes gloves, syringes, and any other medical equipment that will be used by a surgeon. Many of these supplies are made of single-use disposable plastic, which sometimes means the items are used just once before being tossed in the trash.
It’s generally understood by the folks working in the OR that a lot of waste is produced from these single-use disposables, with some research showing that they make up a staggering 20% of all medical waste generated in hospitals. And with covid-19 further reinforcing the importance of sterility, their usage has only increased in recent years.
Dr. Liberman hypothesized that some of the disposable products that get thrown in the trash are never even used, that bad data is then used to inform procurement decisions, and that this terrible inefficiency is ultimately caused by the lack of data available about these supplies at the point-of-use. He and his team set out to test this hypothesis, conducting research that examined whether a real-time surgical cost awareness program could reduce disposable supply costs. If the surgeons better understand what individual items cost, will they be more intentional about what they use?
The research produced astonishing results, with average supply savings of 23%, offering an initial proof point that providing real-time supply usage data at the point-of-use to medical teams can drive powerful efficiencies for hospital bottom-lines (and importantly, in a way that doesn’t impact quality of care for patients). When hospital leadership sought to expand the process to other departments and procedures, Dr. Liberman recognized the opportunity to partner with an experienced group of operators to develop a scalable product that could deliver hospital supply intelligence to optimize supply efficiencies — ultimately leading to the creation of AssistIQ.
AssistIQ’s proprietary artificial intelligence-powered automation solution provides hospitals with real-time data capture at the point-of-use, allowing them to make data-driven decisions about medical disposable utilization. This reduces unnecessary disposable waste, saves money, increases patient safety (by enabling better product traceability during recalls), and helps the environment. The solution has already demonstrated average direct cost savings of $753 per surgery case in the pilot study, and hospitals like CHUM are estimated to save upwards of $15M in unnecessary waste and costs each year.
Because disposable waste is such a big and costly problem, some hospitals have made prior attempts to solve it in-house, but struggled to find a scalable approach that would allow consistent adoption required by surgical teams necessary to unlock real value. AssistIQ’s solution overcomes these challenges by design — developing a frictionless AI-driven solution that captures data passively and produces no extra work for the nurses, fitting into their existing workflows seamlessly.
At StandUp we particularly enjoy investing in “data companies” (other notable examples in our portfolio include Tealbook, MercatorAI, ODAIA and one TBD), and particularly those collecting data in a defensible way. We see a massive opportunity for under-digitized industries (such as healthcare) to begin capturing proprietary data in ways that were previously impossible, then, by using this data as a foundational layer for building products, will be able to generate previously inaccessible insights, ultimately unlocking net new value across entire verticals.
Our perspective is that advancements in machine learning and AI will increase the potential applications for good data, and that this will continue to drive outpaced growth for data companies into the future. Further, that the value of data compounds over time, that it carries inherent value, and that it provides companies with a deep moat to protect against incumbents.
We are also encouraged by the opportunity for AssistIQ to acquire large and sticky contracts in shorter-than-expected lead times, in part due to the strength of the value proposition (using the tool drives real and immediate cost savings for hospitals) and in part because the team is mobilizing creative GTM strategies that are designed to overcome known challenges. Their early traction, including the partnership with the CHUM, is strong evidence for this.
Joining Dr. Liberman are an exceptional cohort of co-founders, including CEO Lisa Israelovitch, Chief Product Officer Mundeep Minhas, and Chief Technology Officer Thierry Wong, the latter 3 of whom have worked together on a prior successful venture.
With such an impressive and balanced founding team and compelling value proposition, we are humbled to be a part of this journey and believe AssistIQ’s solution will have a profound and positive impact on the healthcare industry at large. With our commitment to this round, we look forward to supporting AssistIQ as they continue to revolutionize the way hospitals approach supply chain management and sustainability.
