Colon cancer is increasingly being diagnosed at younger ages and, in many cases, is detected too late. That’s why Groningen-based startup Ameretat is developing an advanced AI model that can detect polyps in colonoscopy video footage at an early stage—where the human eye sometimes falls short. Founder and CEO Setareh Rezaee participated in the NOM Startup Program: 'It gave us a framework to validate our product in a very focused and structured way.'
On average nearly 28% of existing polyps in the colon are missed during a colonoscopy. 'These are often early-stage polyps that are difficult to see with the naked eye and can later develop into malignant polyps,' says Rezaee. 'But at an early stage, they can be treated quickly and effectively. Our AI model analyzes the video feed in real time and helps physicians or specialists detect those early-stage polyps in time. And with just a 10% improvement, you could save 55,000 lives per year in Europe alone. We focus on scalable, cloud-based tools that operate quickly, are easy to integrate into hospitals, and can be flexibly deployed across different healthcare systems.'
From research to startup
The idea behind Ameretat originated during Rezaee’s PhD research in the oncology department at UMCG. 'A major challenge for AI models in the medical sector is that they often require enormous amounts of training data to function well. And of course, not every hospital uses the same equipment, so you also need to ensure that it works on more than the most modern devices with the highest image resolution,' Rezaee explains. 'Our model performed very well even with limited data, and across different resolutions, from 8K to standard definition.'
'I always wanted to become an entrepreneur,' she continues. 'I enjoy building things and never lacked ideas. When we discovered that the model worked well and was easy to integrate, I knew this was the idea I truly had to pursue. So in the final year of my PhD, I started setting up Ameretat as a company and participated in the VentureLab program as well as various pitch competitions and startup contests. Through that, I also got to know the startup ecosystem in the Northern Netherlands.'
Validating and structure
Ameretat has been around for just over a year. 'Validating your product is essential, but in the medtech world, things don’t move as fast as you’d like,' says Rezaee. 'Medical specialists are extremely busy, so it already takes a lot of time to schedule a meeting, let alone convince them afterward to try our model and become a partner. I already had contact with people at NOM, and when they mentioned the Startup Program, it was perfect timing, because it was exactly what I was looking for.'
'The program gave us a framework to validate our product in a very focused and structured way,' Rezaee says. 'That structure is very valuable, because it allows you to clearly demonstrate the steps you’ve taken. That’s also very relevant information for potential investors. And it also gives you, as an entrepreneur, confirmation that you not only have a good product or idea, but something you can adapt to your customers’ needs. It would be a shame to invest a lot of time and money into your product only to discover at the end that no one is actually interested in it.'
KVK Innovation Top 100
'The transition from research to startup was exciting and a lot of fun, but it certainly wasn’t easy,' says Rezaee. 'The most important lesson I learned is that it’s not a linear process. There are easy days when you feel like you’ve really achieved something and are making progress, but there are also difficult days. Ultimately, it comes down to perseverance and working hard on something you truly believe in.'
And that hard work paid off for Ameretat. Last year, the startup finished in 12th place in the Health and Nutrition category of the KVK Innovation Top 100. 'This was the first year that startups with little or no revenue were allowed to participate,' says Rezaee. 'It was amazing to be nominated and to finish in 12th place.'
Future plans
What do the coming years look like for Ameretat? 'At the moment, we’re in discussions with Future Tech Ventures about a funding round, and we’re also in contact with several hospitals to further test our product and set up pilot studies,' says Rezaee. 'The more hospitals join us as partners, the better, because we want our product to be as easy as possible to integrate into different healthcare systems.'
'The Netherlands has excellent university hospitals that we can collaborate with,' Rezaee continues. 'But we’ve also started establishing initial contacts with hospitals in Germany and Belgium. In the longer term, we naturally want to bring our product to market. Sometime next year, we aim to launch a first version of our product, and if all goes well, we plan to introduce a comprehensive all-in-one solution to the market within two to three years.'three years we will bring an all-in-one solution to the market.'