Zoho is acquiring a 25% stake in Voxelgrids and the investment is aimed at fostering the development of deep technological capabilities and intellectual property (IP) in the country, thereby making this technology more affordable in India.

“Our mission is to invest in critical technology know-how in India. This fits very well with that mission,” Sridhar Vembu, co-founder and chief executive officer, Zoho, said while announcing the investment.

Over 70 per cent of the world’s population have no access to MRI scanners and the situation is not that encouraging in India where there are only 0.4 MRI scanners per thousand and most of this access is in large cities.

The Indian market for such equipment is dominated by imported machines that find their way to large hospitals and the remaining hospitals have to make do with refurbished equipment. It is the patients who have to eventually bear the burden, either by paying a huge sum for a test or depend on unreliable machines.

Zoho aims to bridge this gap by helping in the development of indigenous MRI technology that provides a next-generation and cost-effective alternative that enables healthcare facilities to save on capital and operational expenditure.

"One of the pressing concerns for the Indian economy today is the lack of indigenous industrial know-how and manufacturing capabilities. A healthy deep tech ecosystem is vital to solving this issue and driving structural economic change. Voxelgrids is one of the few companies that is working to solve this problem with MRI machines entirely built in India,” said Vembu. 

“Deep tech products like ours require a significant amount of time from completing the R&D to taking the product to market, and most often, this is the time where we face insufficient funding. The investment from Zoho will help us bridge this gap and speed up our efforts to scale," said Arjun Arunachalam, CEO and founder, Voxelgrids.

Voxelgrids has developed multiple technologies related to MRI scanners based on custom cryogenics and innovative electronic design and is looking to monetize it through OEM partnerships with other vendors in the field. The scanner can also be mounted on custom mobile platforms and transported to remote locations where the product can be made operational within a few hours.

The operational costs such as electricity consumption are expected to be much lower than other scanners in its class. Voxelgrids also aims to have multiple full-fledged clinical sites before the end of this financial year.