More funds for ForceClouds' R&D department will boost the company's data research and analysis capabilities in the short-run.
Beijing-based cloud service provider ForceClouds (云势软件) has completed a Series B funding round worth tens of million dollars, led by Fidelity-backed investment firm Eight Roads (斯道资本), with participation from Oriental Fortune Capital (东方富海) and Blue Lake Capital (蓝湖资本).
Founded in 2015, ForceClouds provides cloud services, big data analysis, and artificial intelligence management processes for healthcare companies, particularly biotech and medical devices firms, as well as CRO and hospitals.
The company has secured a total of five funding rounds worth over CNY 40 million (equivalent to over USD 6 million) with Eight Roads (owned by Fidelity International Limited) being one of the principal shareholders and investors with involvement in three investments in five rounds.
As an SaaS service provider, the firm's core business is distributed across three areas:
Sales management – mainly focuses on CRM (Customer Relationship Management) to improve sales performance and process;
Clinical trials – helps healthcare companies to control and manage the data during the clinical trial process and reduce costs;
Big data and AI – uses advanced AI technology to help in the development of drugs and speed up the R&D process, thereby improving medicine.
The company claims to be the first Chinese SaaS service provider to deploy AI in the healthcare sector abroad by establishing the ForceClouds-Cornell Medical AI Lab in New York in 2017 with the cooperation of Cornell University School of Medicine.
Chinese counterparts, such as HCR (慧辰资讯), which was founded three years after ForceClouds, has raised a total of over USD 68 million in recent years. The firm also provides similar services as ForceClouds; however, it has expanded its services beyond the healthcare industry. Other sectors include automobile, retail, media and finance.
In early 2019, the American SaaS service provider Innovaccer carried out its Series B funding round worth USD 11 million, led by Microsoft's subsidiary investment firm M12. After the fundraising, the Innovaccer's total amount raised to over USD 54 million. It has developed its self-data activation platform with the primary goal of providing physicians with the latest industry insights.
The modern world has become a world of AI. Companies from various industries are embracing technology and make good use of it.
According to a report "Artificial Intelligence: Trends and Startups 2019" due to be released by EqualOcean during the World Innovators Meet 2019 (an annual event that gathers the most prominent global leaders from a variety of fields at the heart of Beijing), from 2012 to 2019 AI startups raised a total of over USD 31 billion, with the United States, China and the United Kingdom ranking at the top of the list. Among the sectors, the analysis found 56 companies engaged in providing SaaS services.
In the long run, AI is expected to drive multiple industries and be the main motor of economic growth. Just as there are unbounded possibilities created by human intelligence, the scope of full AI is also unlimited.