Dectrocel Bags ₹4 Crore from BioAngels, PadUp Ventures to Accelerate AI-Powered Healthcare Tools

Dectrocel, a pioneering health-tech company developing AI-powered diagnostic solutions, has raised ₹4 crore in recent funding. The round was led by IAN Group-powered BioAngels, with participation from PadUp Ventures and Vinners.

Key investors from IAN in this round include Nitin Zamre, Samir Kalia, and Mitesh Shah. The fresh infusion of capital will be used to scale Dectrocel’s commercial operations across India, enhance its self-learning foundational multimodal AI technology, expand into international markets, and accelerate the launch of its upcoming AI Tools in CT /MRI/PET-CT and HPB diagnostic modules.

Headquartered in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, Dectrocel has launched its flagship product, DecXpert, which is one of only three AI-based diagnostic tools approved by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) for clinical use in India. The platform delivers chest X-ray and CT-scan interpretations that are 10 times faster and 98% accurate, addressing India’s acute radiologist shortage - currently at a staggering 1:125,000 doctor-to-patient ratio. This shortage results in diagnosis delays of 7 to 10 days and error rates of up to 40%, particularly in tier-2 and smaller cities where timely intervention can be life-saving.

Dectrocel was founded by Ankit Shukla, an AI-in-medicine expert from the University of Queensland; MS in Infectious Diseases from Duke Medical School, NUS, Singapore. Saumya Shukla, a Doctorate in Public Health from SGPGIMS with an MBA from NUS and MS in Data Science from Harvard; and Nikhil Mishra, an IIT Kanpur Researcher specializing in AI and machine learning applications in medicine.

The company’s mission stems from a deeply personal experience where a patient with a persistent cough went undiagnosed for months due to delayed X-ray interpretations and ultimately succumbed to late-stage lung cancer. This tragedy transformed the founders’ vision into a life-saving mission to democratize access to expert-level diagnostic capabilities for every patient, regardless of geography or income.

PadUp Ventures, a Mentor-Driven Incubator Focused on Tech and Mobile Startups, Launches Today in NCR

Padup Ventures, a mentor-driven incubator focused on tech and mobile startups has been formally launched today in NCR. Padup Ventures aims to create a world-class incubator with high quality mentoring capabilities across the tech space. According to NASSCOM, India has the third highest number of start-ups globally, with over 4,200 startups in 2015 and is the fastest growing startup market worldwide. With the Government announcing the Startup India Action plan on 16th January this year, the start-up community in India is set to receive a huge impetus in the coming years.

There are several key factors that determine the success of start-ups, including execution and technological expertise. Research shows that about 10% of start-ups actually succeed. In such a scenario, the importance of mentoring cannot be overemphasized. Global research also shows that startups that have helpful mentors, track metrics effectively, and learn from startup thought leaders raise 7x more money and have 3.5x better user growth. Also, almost a third of top performing startup firms were those where the founders had been mentored by top a performing entrepreneur. Padup Ventures endeavors to actively support young stage technology companies at formative stages and significantly enhance survival rates, and galvanize the startup ecosystem in India.

Padup Ventures, with a collective experience of over 70 years, is the brainchild of Rajat Jain, a corporate honcho and Ex-MD of Xerox India now turned enterpreneur, Pankaj Thakar, a tech and mobile evangelist and serial entrepreneur and Deepak Sogani, a seasoned strategic finance and business growth professional. Its range of services encompass the entire realm of the incubation value chain, ranging from mentoring; idea/concept positioning, validation and viability of the concept; forging strategic alliances, partnerships and connects, including customers, channel partners, investors, media, analysts, and advisors; and commercialization of product/services, to assistance with Angel and VC funding. Padup Ventures is being launched in the Delhi/NCR region to begin with, with a plan to grow across a few other Tier-2 knowledge cities across India, including Ludhiana, Kanpur, Jaipur and the like over the next couple of years.

PadUp ventures has been in beta mode for a few months now and already has built up a slate of around 10 incubatee startups across sectors like education, big data, interactive gaming and recruitment services. They have also supported their first incubatee, Neuron, to an angel funding round of over Rs 1 Cr and are now looking at a strategic merger of Neuron with a strategic player leading them to their first exit.