Mint Labs is a remote medical image analysis and visualization platform that helps doctors to provide a better diagnosis and treatment for patients with brain diseases. Mint Lab’s utilization of advanced image analysis algorithms allows them to create complex 3D maps of the patient’s brain – “like Google Maps for the brain.” Mint Labs is currently in Atlanta as a member of the NeuroLaunch accelerator.
We caught up with CEO Paulo Rodrigues to hear more of their story.
Year/Date Founded:
2013
Number of Employees:
6
Founders/Execs:
Paulo Rodrigues
Vesna Prčkovska
Funding:
We entered Wayra (a Telefonica accelerator) in Barcelona. We got eur 240k funds from Wayra and Spanish public funding tools. We are now closing a seed round of eur 500k, with BAs from US and Europe.
What health problem are you solving?
Nearly 33% of the EU population is affected by a brain disease. We provide detailed 3D maps of the patient’s brain, using advanced MRI technology. We bring advanced research in neuroimaging and put it in the hands of the doctors using mobile technology and new motion capture devices to make these tools easy to use. As a result doctors can have a better vision and understanding of the patients history and pathology, which can be critical for diagnosis and planning prior to brain surgery.
The market/industry impact:
We are starting with a niche market of brain research, that by itself is just $800M, but we will approach the other verticals, per brain diseases, which together composes a huge market of $8B. We approach each vertical with specific, targeted marketing strategy, by reaching the respective medical and scientific conferences and specific disease associations.
Revenue model:
As our first users are researchers, neurologists, neurosurgeons, around the world, and this model is a pay-per-use basis, charging for the storage of the data, and for the processing of the data with basic and pro modes (depending on the processing features). We offer initial credits, to attract the users into the platform. We are making our platform compatible with the big vendors of equipment, and this is a b2b model.
How did you get the idea for it?
We created Mint Labs to fill a gap that exists in the diagnoses and treatment of many brain diseases. Both Vesna and I did our PhDs in neuroimaging so it was an obvious choice for us to start Mint Labs after seeing that the medical sector did not have our technology available to them.
Who are your competitors and how do you stand out?
What sets ourselves apart in the biotech field from other companies is that what we do is different. We are creating advanced 3D images of the brain including fibers to be used for diagnoses treatment, and surgery. At this time what is used are 2D black and white images with no fibers. Being able to see the fibers and get quantitative results from the scans allow doctors and surgeons to have much more information than was available to them before Mint Labs.
What kind of mentor could you use the most right now?
An ideal mentor for us at the moment would be somebody that was deeply involved in the medical imaging sector, or for instance in genomic platforms in the cloud. Neuroimaging is going through a similar phase as it was the genome project, and we could learn from that experience.
How does ATL weave into your story?
Atlanta represents a great convergence of entrepreneurship, technology and healthcare. For us, together with Neurolaunch, it’s a great opportunity to enter the US market, to learn about this market, and to effectively approach important US first clients (like Emory Hospital for instance).
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