Ubie, the Japanese health technologist, wants to boost its US expansion with $19M Series C extension toptecheasy.com

Ubiea Tokyo-based startup that provides an AI-powered symptom checking app and SaaS products for hospitals has closed a $19 million extension for his previous Serie C round. This brings the health tech startup’s total funding to $45.2 million in Series C.

The extension round consists of 90% equity and 10% debt financing, said Ubie Kota Kuto’s co-founder and CEO. With this round, Ubie has raised a total of $76 million since its inception in 2017.

The startup declined to comment on the company’s valuation, but a source familiar with the situation who wished to remain anonymous told toptecheasy.com that the valuation is now valued at $250 million. Investors in the latest funding include Sogo Medical, AAIC Investment, Japan Impact Investment, Rakuten Capital, Shoko Chukin Bank, Japan Finance Corporation and Mizuho Bank.

Ubie plans to use the proceeds to scale up its healthcare platform and ramp up its penetration in the US after it entered Singapore in August. The startup has started the symptom checker app in the US earlier this year and opened a US subsidiary in October. Kuto told toptecheasy.com that Singapore’s medical system is similar to Japan’s, given its geographic and cultural background, so the company decided Singapore would be “an appropriate first step for global expansion.”

The outlet is in talks with drug companies to increase partnerships, many of which have offices on the East Coast, Kuto explained. It expects to finalize and announce a handful of partnership deals early next year, Kuto added.

Ubie isn’t the only health tech company developing an AI-assisted symptom checker for users. A Boston-based startup, Buoy health, a symptom checking app built using AI; Berlin-based Ada Health also developed an AI-driven symptom assessment app; and IBM physician helps people with symptom assessment. Kuto pointed out that Ubie offers a B2B product called Ubie for Hospital, also known as AI Monshin, and a B2C app for individual users. The Ubie for Hospitals, which helps doctors reduce their time taking notes of patients’ histories, is a medical questionnaire software that allows patients to conduct a preliminary interview via a tablet while waiting to meet with a doctor.

“Based on data from approximately 50,000 medical research papers [created by more than 50 physicisans]Al Monshin [automatically] selects and asks about 20 questions from 3,500 types of question data,” Kota said.

Co-founded by physician Yoshinori Abe and engineer Kubo, Ubie claims that more than 1,100 medical institutions in Japan are using Ubie’s AI Monshin. The company also has more than 7 million monthly active users (MAUs) of its symptom control app. Ubie employs about 200 people.