Dectrocel raises Rs 4 crore funding led by IAN Group-powered BioAngels

New Delhi: Dectrocel, a pioneering health-tech company developing AI-powered diagnostic solutions, has raised ₹4 crore in recent funding. The round was led by IAN Group-powered BioAngels, with participation from PadUp Ventures and Vinners. Key investors from IAN in this round include Nitin Zamre, Samir Kalia, and Mitesh Shah. 

The fresh infusion of capital will be used to scale Dectrocel’s commercial operations across India, enhance its self-learning foundational multimodal AI technology, expand into international markets, and accelerate the launch of its upcoming AI Tools in CT /MRI/PET-CT and HPB diagnostic modules.

Headquartered in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, Dectrocel has launched its flagship product, DecXpert, which is one of only three AI-based diagnostic tools approved by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) for clinical use in India. The platform delivers chest X-ray and CT-scan interpretations that are 10 times faster and 98% accurate, addressing India’s acute radiologist shortage – currently at a staggering 1:125,000 doctor-to-patient ratio. This shortage results in diagnosis delays of 7 to 10 days and error rates of up to 40%, particularly in tier-2 and smaller cities where timely intervention can be life-saving.

Dectrocel was founded by Ankit Shukla, an AI-in-medicine expert from the University of Queensland; MS in Infectious Diseases from Duke Medical School, NUS, Singapore. Saumya Shukla, a Doctorate in Public Health from SGPGIMS with an MBA from NUS and MS in Data Science from Harvard; and Nikhil Mishra, an IIT Kanpur Researcher specializing in AI and machine learning applications in medicine. The company’s mission stems from a deeply personal experience where a patient with a persistent cough went undiagnosed for months due to delayed X-ray interpretations and ultimately succumbed to late-stage lung cancer. This tragedy transformed the founders’ vision into a life-saving mission to democratize access to expert-level diagnostic capabilities for every patient, regardless of geography or income.

Ankit Shukla, Founder & Technical Director, Dectrocel, said, “We’re not just building AI diagnostic tools – we’re saving lives by ensuring that a patient in a tier-3 city gets the same quality chest X-ray/ CT /MRI/PET-CT Scan interpretation as someone in a metro hospital. Our 40.1% improvement in missed case detection, validated in Nature Scientific, proves that AI can be the great equalizer in healthcare access.”

Padmaja Ruparel, Co-founder, IAN Group, said, “Dectrocel is addressing India’s most critical healthcare issue, the shortage of radiologists, with a solution that is not only clinically proven but also cost-effective and scalable. Their technology guarantees that even patients in small towns and villages have the same quality of diagnostic proficiency as patients in metro hospitals. This is the type of innovation that BioAngels was established to fund deep-tech for a purpose, which can change lives while establishing a globally competitive business.”

Dectrocel’s cap table also includes healthcare investment banker Sagar Sangoi, adding further weight to its growth journey. Over the past four years, the company has achieved remarkable milestones, screening more than 10,000 individual patients across nine active projects and assisting in prioritizing over 50,000 patients for diagnosis.

This funding will enable Dectrocel to expand its commercial deployment of DecXpert across OEM partner networks, penetrate India’s ₹1,000 crore digital X-ray market, and establish an initial presence in Southeast Asia. The company is also working on product diversification with new diagnostic modules for CT/MRI/ PET-CT scans and HPB disease Modules, and enhancing AI capabilities for broader pathology detection and self-learning adaptability.