Health tech start-up xWave Technologies closes €1.3 million seed funding round

Posted 8 September, 2022

Irish health tech start-up (opens in a new window)xWave Technologies, headquartered at NovaUCD, has closed an €1.3 million seed funding round led by a number of private investors, including €250k from Enterprise Ireland.

The company, founded by a group of leading Irish radiologists in 2020, has partnered with University College Dublin on an international patent application for the use of AI and machine learning to build out the next generation of diagnostic referral tools.

Work on this collaborative research project is underway with (opens in a new window)CeADAR, Ireland’s Centre for Applied AI based at UCD, and the project, led by Ricardo Simon Carbajo, CeADAR’s Head of Innovation and Development, has been funded through the Enterprise Ireland Innovation Partnership Programme.

In 2021 xWave launched xRefer, a cloud-based referral platform that supports clinicians in ordering the most appropriate radiology scan for their patients.

Available on web, iOS and Android apps, xRefer enables its users to quickly create and send evidence-based digital radiology referrals from anywhere, to any hospital or imaging centre, whether public or private.

xWave has already demonstrated a positive impact in Irish hospitals where use of xRefer has reduced the average time taken to create, send and have a referral reviewed by a radiologist - enabling the scheduling of patient appointments to occur a week and a half earlier on average.

It is predicted that the national roll-out of xRefer across the Irish healthcare system will reduce unnecessary radiology referrals by more than 60%, delivering a significant reduction on the radiology waiting list that continues to grow post-Covid.

“The data that we have already seen from the use of xRefer in the Irish healthcare system indicates we can potentially eliminate radiology waiting lists in Ireland and abroad by removing unnecessary tests and ensuring that patients get the best test first,” said Mitchell O’Gorman, xWave Technologies CEO.

“We already have partnerships in place with two of the largest radiology societies in the world, the European Society of Radiology and the Royal College of Radiologists in the UK. This funding will enable xWave capitalise on commercial opportunities that we now have in the Irish, UK, and Northern European markets.”

By: David Kearns, Digital Journalist / Media Officer, UCD University Relations (with materials from Micéal Whelan, UCD Research and Innovation)