Yuimedi, a medical data utilization company, raises 450 million yen and becomes the third Japanese team to be selected for the Alchemist Accelerator.

Sep 30 2023 – Yuimedi, the developer of a medical data utilization platform, announces that it has raised a total of 450 million yen through a pre-series A private placement of new shares. Chiba Dojo Fund, Nissay Capital, D4V, Coral Capital, DG Daiwa Ventures, and Incubate Fund (an existing shareholder) are the underwriters for this round.

In addition, we have been selected for an acceleration program offered by Alchemist Accelerator, one of the leading accelerators in Silicon Valley. We are the third Japanese team to be selected for this program and will be leveraging this opportunity to enter the U.S. market.

In recent years, there has been a growing demand from society to better utilize medical data. It is said that medical data obtained through daily medical procedures called Real World Data (RWD), such as electronic medical records, has the potential to provide value to patients through the provision of more appropriate treatment and drug development. Increasing the utilization of RWD is also becoming a priority for national and local governments as it can contribute to the reduction of medical costs.

On the other hand, as the spread of the coronavirus has shown, Japan is lagging behind the world in regards to RWD utilization. One of the blockers for better RWD utilization is that RWD such as electronic medical records are not well-formatted and in the form of “structured data,” and therefore is not designed for data analysis. Currently, the “data cleansing” process to clean up this unstructured data is performed manually, taking an enormous amount of man-hours.

To solve this challenge, Yuimedi has developed “Yuicleaner,” a no-code, easy-to-use software for data cleansing that does not require programming knowledge. Yuimedi believes that the creation of cleansed RWD will lead to a more active exchange of RWD between data holders, such as hospitals, and data utilizers, such a pharmaceutical companies, ultimately providing value to patients.

In addition to the development and provision of “Yuicleaner,” Yuimedi provides support to hospitals for the construction of medical databases and consultation to pharmaceutical companies on the use of medical data, aiming to build a platform that facilitates the exchange of RWD between data owners and users. To achieve this goal, the company plans to conduct four joint research projects with national hospitals and other organizations, and has about 10 business partners.

We believe that there are some areas in the U.S. market related to the utilization of medical data that are more mature than in the Japan market. Therefore, with the goal of reimporting business in the future and with our inclusion into the Alchemist Accelerator in 2023, we have decided to develop our U.S. and domestic business at the same time. The funds raised will be used for platform development in Japan and to build a foundation for U.S. expansion.

【Comments from underwriters (in no particular order)】

Kotaro Chiba, General Partner, Chiba Dojo Fund

Chiba Dojo is pleased to announce that we have invested in Yuimedi as lead investor for this round.
Yuimedi develops a platform that provides medical data to its clients.
Chiba Dojo fully supports Emiri Grimes’ desire to build a company that can compete on a global scale. We believe Yuimedi has the potential to further improve the Japanese economy in the area of medical data.
Yuimedi’s team has a strong belief that better data products will lead to a better experience for patients who provide data to the company.
Chiba Dojo Fund is also proud to continually support women entrepreneurs with this latest investment in Emiri Grimes and her team.

Tomoyuki Kasai, Chief Capitalist, Investment Department, Nissay Capital

Corporation Despite the vast amount of medical data being accumulated every day, the unfortunate reality is that it is still not being effectively utilized due to legal and cost issues. Yuimedi’s team of full-stack engineers with extensive product development experience and experts with a wealth of medical expertise can solve this challenge and realize a world where more accurate data and information reach patients and healthcare professionals. We believe that Yuimedi can achieve their mission of “bringing necessary medical care to necessary patients through data”.

Fumiaki Nagase D4V（Design for Ventures) , Principal

From the very first meeting, we were immediately impressed with Yuimedi: we saw an experienced and confident team, with the required technical capabilities and initial product-market fit. The healthcare industry is eagerly awaiting solutions for a more efficient utilization of clinical data, and Yuimedi is well positioned to greatly contribute to optimal patient healthcare. We believe the company’s service will be an indispensable tool for automated medical data cleansing within the industry. D4V has already started supporting Yuimedi from product design to customer interviews, and we look forward to working together to enable its global business expansion.

James Riney Founding Partner & CEO

While the healthcare industry has made progress on the digitalization of medical records, the databases are still disparate and lack interoperability. Many of the potential benefits of leveraging this data cannot be realized without proper cleansing to make it useful. Yuimedi is leading the way by bringing together a strong team at the intersection of healthcare and engineering to build solutions to overcome these complex challenges. We’re excited to play a small part in this ambitious and important endeavor.

DG Daiwa Ventures, Senior Principal Yuta Sanada, Associate Yuma Nishikawa

Yuimedi is a potential global healthcare data player who can enhance the efficiency of developing new treatments/medicines by offering data-cleansing solutions dedicated to healthcare data and insights on data usage. In the bigger picture, DGDV considers what Yuimedi offers would even tackle the global challenge, Medical cost cuts. Yuimedi’s strategy of becoming a healthcare data platformer based on data-cleansing is unique worldwide, and we believe Yuimedi can become an innovator in healthcare data utilization.

Yusuke Murata / Co-Founder & General Partner at Incubate Fund

Yuimedi provides data cleansing, or so-called ETL tools, specializing in medical big data and creating a system that can be used as real world data via an accumulated DWH.
Yuimedi’s biggest advantage is that it has a great team.For more details, please visit our recruitment page, but we have a great team that can compete on a global scale. I have been working with Emiri on the business hypothesis and team building since before the company was founded, and now that it has finally come to fruition, we are ready for this round.
We hope that medical information will be implemented in society in the way it should be.

【Comments from CEO and Representative Director, Eimiri Grimes】

When I was a graduate student, I was also engaged in epidemiological research dealing with medical data. One of the issues I felt at the time was that if the necessary data could be easily obtained from the real world in a clean format, research activities could be conducted more quickly. Yuimedi was launched in the hope of overcoming these challenges and creating a world in which medical research using data can flourish.

This world needs to be created together with all stakeholders, both owners and users of medical data. Through this fund raising, Yuimedi will unite more stakeholders and strive to realize its mission of “delivering necessary medical care to necessary patients through data”.

＜Profile of Eimiri Grimes＞
Emiri graduated from Kyoto University, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences. After obtaining her pharmacist license, she worked in clinical development at Takeda Pharmaceutical Company. Interested in improving the Japanese healthcare system through the combination of industry, government, and academia, she obtained a Masters in Medical and Industrial Pharmaceutical Sciences from ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Afterwards, she studied managerial perspectives as a consultant at McKinsey & Company. founded Yuimedi Inc. in November 2020 to develop digital solutions related to the intersection of healthcare and data.

【About Yuicleaner】

Yuicleaner is an AI-based, no-code data cleansing software specialized for medical data. It can operate offline and is suitable for cleansing sensitive medical data. It also enables users to trace how data was transformed, enabling data quality control.
HP：https://us.yuimedi.com/product/

【About Alchemist Accelerator】

A top-tier accelerator headquartered in the U.S. that specializes in seed-stage B2B startups. As of September 2020, over 300 companies have participated in the program with more than 150 companies successfully receiving over $500,000 in investments and more than 35 companies having achieved M&A Exits.
HP：https://www.alchemistaccelerator.com/