Northern Gritstone invests in Manchester-based AI-powered virtual training company, Re:course AI
The company’s AI-powered virtual training is addressing staffing pressures, continuous learning demands and the pace of innovation in life sciences.
Northern Gritstone, the investment business focused on university spin-outs and technology-enabled businesses in the North of England, has invested in Re:course AI, a deeptech company developing an artificial intelligence (AI) healthcare training simulator, as part of a $4.3 million seed funding round, led by Par Equity. Other investors include the GMC Life Sciences Fund By Praetura, Rob Wood (founder of STEM Healthcare) and the founders of Current Health.
Based in Manchester, Re:course AI was founded by Dr. Scott Martin, CEO, and Dr. Maksim Belousov, CTO, who describe the company as the “flight simulator for healthcare and life sciences.” It uses AI models and digital human avatars in virtual training exercises to provide healthcare professionals with realistic patient interactions and automatic feedback. Tutors can also support medical professionals examining multiple conditions, acting like a co-pilot to steer individuals through training.
Re:course AI is already integrated into healthcare institutions in the US and UK, including the prestigious US Medical Centre, USC Keck School of Medicine, and NHS England SBRI Healthcare. The company will use the funding to expand its engineering team and enter new markets, improving capacity and scalability at a time when the global healthcare industry must urgently address chronic staffing shortages.
Its digital human platform is delivered as standardised training to improve the consistency of diagnosis and treatment. Early indications show it significantly enhances the performance of clinicians during patient encounters in role-playing exercises ranging from diagnosing rare cancers to assessing mental health conditions.
The Re:course AI platform will also speed up the process of clinical learning in Life Sciences areas such as drug discovery, where innovation is already outpacing healthcare professionals’ ability to stay up-to-date with developments.
Dr. Scott Martin, CEO and co-founder of Re:course AI, said: “The aviation industry is another sector where safety is of paramount importance, and it has led the way in demonstrating the value of simulated training to maintain and update the skills of pilots. We believe AI will augment, not replace, the healthcare workforce of the future and we have already demonstrated in our customer implementations that Re:course AI can be the flight simulator for medical training. We are delighted to receive the backing of our investors, as we are keen to expand our team to respond to growing global demand for our digital human platform.”
Northern Gritstone CEO, Duncan Johnson, said: “The strength of Re:course AI’s proposition and the interest it has attracted from the venture capital community underlines how dynamic the tech start-up scene is in the Manchester-Leeds-Sheffield region. Re:course AI builds on the strong tradition in artificial intelligence in Manchester that started with the ‘Father of AI’ Alan Turing. We are delighted to be supporting the company’s ambition to fundamentally improve healthcare training and show the commercial potential of the North of England on the world stage.”
