SAIL Announces $4.7 Million Seed Fundraising Round to Help Advance Life-Saving Clinical Research
Our next-generation clinical data registry helps patient advocacy groups connect with clinical researchers to securely access greater volumes of representative data.
(Cambridge, MA, November 8, 2022) — Secure AI Labs (aka SAIL), the next-generation clinical data registry for patient advocacy groups, announced today it has raised $4.7 million in Seed funding to help these groups more easily access and manage a vast network of clinical data sets – ultimately enabling clinical researchers to break new ground with disease-ending insights. The funding round was led by Asset Management Ventures, with additional investment from Mozilla Ventures, Future Labs, and York IE. To date, SAIL has raised $9 million.
Traditionally, patient advocacy groups haven’t had an easy way to securely connect clinical researchers with patient datasets from hospitals and other institutions. Clinical research typically relies on a limited number of clinical sites, which leads to inherent bias and insights that only benefit specific subsets of the population.
From 2015-2019, 76% of clinical trial participants were white, according to data from the Food and Drug Administration.
Relying on novel federated analytics, SAIL’s turnkey research platform brings together clinical data sets from 100+ hospitals, creating a representative data pool that includes information on rare subtypes, minorities and other groups. Patient advocacy groups can attract mission-aligned funding without spending tens of millions of dollars developing their own ad-hoc data registries.
“For too long, the data we have accessed for clinical research has not been representative of the population at large,” said Anne Kim, CEO, SAIL. “Current studies are siloed and come from the same sites or data points over and over again. Insights are often based on those who have the luxury of being able to participate in the clinical trials – traditionally upper middle class white males. Our goal is to bring together a larger, more diverse data network – so clinical researchers can collaborate on medical breakthroughs for everyone.”
Hospitals face strict data privacy standards. SAIL’s clinical data registries are founded with advanced security in mind. SAIL’s federated analytics allow researchers’ statistical queries to run on multiple hospital data sets without humans seeing or accessing each data set. This model offers multi-direction confidentiality, enforced and audited data protection, and robust end-to-end encryption. Researchers cannot access discrete elements of or see hospital data, and hospitals can’t see datasets other than their own.
The Kidney Cancer Association (KCA), a non-profit organization supporting the kidney cancer community, is an early partner of SAIL’s. SAIL’s federated learning platform is an integral part of the KCA’s Kidney Cancer Data Federation, a novel approach to research that overcomes three major obstacles kidney cancer investigators face: patient privacy, data that is limited in volume and scope, and cost.
“More representative healthcare data shouldn’t come at the expense of individuals’ privacy,” said Mohamed Nanabhay, Managing Partner at Mozilla Ventures. “SAIL’s ability to grant clinical researchers access to more data while protecting patient privacy will only help to make the solutions more effective for all people and drive greater outcomes at scale.”
“Artificial intelligence and federated analytics are essential for breaking down data silos,” said
Richard Simoni, Managing Partner at Asset Management Ventures. “SAIL has found a way to apply this technology to the life-saving field of clinical research.”
For press inquiries, contact media@secureailabs.com
ABOUT SAIL
Secure AI Labs is a next-generation clinical data registry that offers more representative and secure clinical data – allowing clinical researchers to break new ground with disease-ending insights. With advanced security measures, novel federated analytics, and a vast, connected network of hospital data and researchers, SAIL helps clinical researchers analyze greater volumes of representative data while preserving patient privacy. SAIL helps patient advocacy groups and their partners bring researchers and disparate hospital datasets together around a common goal – preventing, treating, and curing disease for every population and subtype. Securely connect to representative data that enables disease-ending insights at https://secureailabs.com/.
ABOUT ASSET MANAGEMENT VENTURES
Founded in Palo Alto in 1965, Asset Management Ventures (AMV) is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in technology and life sciences, with a primary interest in the burgeoning digital health sector. The partnership team, all former entrepreneurs with broad operating backgrounds, combines deep domain knowledge with extensive investment experience in technology and healthcare. Every day, the team is focused on one thing: helping founders create opportunities and navigate challenges en route to building truly transformational companies.
ABOUT MOZILLA VENTURES
Mozilla Ventures is a first-of-its-kind impact venture fund that invests in startups pushing the internet — and the tech industry — in a better direction. The fund supports early-stage startups whose products or technologies advance one or more values in the Mozilla Manifesto, like privacy, inclusion, transparency, accessibility, and human dignity. Its long-term strategy: To fuel an ecosystem of products and technology that respect users and that make the internet a healthier place. The fund is led by Managing Partner Mohamed Nanabhay.
ABOUT FUTURE LABS CAPITAL
Future Labs Capital powers innovation to fundamentally change the human condition throughout the world. The fund focuses on scaling early-stage companies coming out of the M.I.T ecosystem that solve real-world problems.
ABOUT YORK IE
York IE™ is a vertically integrated strategic growth and investment firm helping reshape the way companies are built, scaled and monetized. Through Fuel™, its SaaS platform, hands-on advisory services and selective early stage B2B SaaS investments, York IE supports ambitious entrepreneurs, operators and investors on their quest to scale startups and disrupt markets. Play the long game at york.ie.