Munich Startup: What does your startup do? What problem do you solve?
Kathrin Khadra, Ryver.ai: AI applications supporting radiology often struggle with accuracy and robustness. In the broader context, this means that AI is less effective at detecting diseases in underrepresented patient groups, such as people of color or those with rare diseases.
This is because access to test and training data is generally very difficult due to data protection and fragmented IT infrastructure. To obtain data, radiology AI providers either negotiate 12-24 month collaborations with hospitals or purchase data from brokers for up to €200 per image.
Ryver.ai solves this data bottleneck with AI-generated radiology data (e.g., X-rays, CT scans, MRIs). Our software can be thought of as an art forger. Based on real images, it understands the specific characteristics and can then generate completely new images, so-called synthetic data. These images can then be used to train radiology AI applications in clinical practice. Because the synthetic data can no longer be directly attributed to real patients, it protects privacy.
Munich Startup: But that's been around for a long time!
Kathrin Khadra: That's right. Similar solutions have been used for years in the development of autonomous vehicles. A large portion of the training data is merely simulations of real-world traffic situations.
Ryver.ai uses the latest findings from generative AI research to achieve a level of quality that makes synthetic data relevant for the healthcare market.
Solution to urgent problem
Munich Startup: What is your founding story?
Kathrin Khadra: We met a few years ago through scholarships. I know Jonas from Manage and More Scholarship the UnternehmerTUM and Simona about the Femtec scholarship.
In 2020, at the beginning of the lockdown, we jointly founded a voucher platform for small local shops in Munich to provide them with a revenue stream while they were forced to close. It all went well, but we quickly realized it wasn't something we wanted to work on for the next 10 years. So we handed it over to Regional Hero, who had built a very similar concept in Berlin and are still pursuing it.
We then sat down together and started considering which problem out there urgently needed a solution. We quickly became convinced that the large amount of data required for AI development and the high relevance of data protection represented a growing challenge. We tested several solutions for different industries, and one survived: synthetic data for radiology AI.
Munich Startup: What have been your biggest challenges so far?
Kathrin Khadra: Of course, the development of the technology is very complex. Generating synthetic data of a quality that allows it to be used in a medical context poses many challenges.
Introducing this technology, especially in a very risk-averse market, is at least as difficult. We had to invest a lot of effort to gain the trust of potential customers.
Munich Startup: Where would you like to be in one year, where in five years?
Kathrin Khadra: We aim to launch the first product for lung CT with tumor indications by next year, following the initial pilot studies. After that, we will further expand our generative models. This means adding new body parts such as the head and abdomen, as well as additional imaging modalities such as MRI.
In about five years, our solutions will then be able to address data for a very broad spectrum of use cases in clinical AI but also in the pharmaceutical industry.
“Driving force in the background”
Munich Startup: How have you experienced Munich as a startup location so far?
Kathrin Khadra: Jonas and I have been part of the UnternehmerTUM ecosystem practically since day one. We started with the Manage and More grant, refined our idea in the Xplore program, and recently completed our funding round with the support of Xpreneurs.
We have also received continuous support from the TUM Venture LabsAntoine Leboyer, our mentor, for example, provided the crucial contact to our first investor.
The environment of fellow founders who all face similar challenges is incredibly valuable and always helps us when we have to make difficult decisions.
Munich Startup: Hidden champion or shooting star?
Kathrin Khadra: First and foremost, we want to solve a serious and major problem: safe medical AI for every patient. If that requires us to shine a spotlight on it, then we're happy to be the shooting star; otherwise, we're simply the driving force behind the scenes.
