Intron Health Secures $1.6M to Advance African Accent Recognition in Speech Technology

Intron Health has secured $1.6 million in funding to enhance its speech-recognition technology, tailored specifically for African accents.

• Innovative Speech Recognition: Their algorithm is trained on 3.5 million audio clips from over 18,000 contributors across 29 countries, ensuring accuracy in medical terms and local dialects.

• Founder’s Vision: Tobi Olatunji, the founder, and CEO, experienced firsthand the inefficiencies in healthcare documentation while working as a doctor in Nigeria. His frustration with repetitive tasks drove him to create a solution that streamlines medical data entry and improves accuracy.

• Investor Support: The recent $1.6 million pre-seed round was led by Microtraction, with participation from Plug and Play Ventures, Jaza Rift Ventures, Octopus Ventures, Africa Health Ventures, OpenseedVC, Pi Campus, Alumni Angel, BakerBridge Capital, and several angel investors.

• Real-World Impact: Intron Health's technology is already in use at 30 hospitals across Kenya and Nigeria.

• Future Developments: With the new funding, Intron Health plans to enhance noise cancellation, support low bandwidths, and improve multi-speaker transcription.

Intron Health’s strides in speech-recognition technology are not just advancing medical documentation but are also setting new standards for inclusivity and efficiency in healthcare.