Odin Vision, UK-based leader in AI for cancer detection, acquired by Olympus to supercharge global growth

Odin Vision, a Cloud AI endoscopy company, has announced it has signed an agreement to be acquired by Olympus Corporation for up to £66m. The deal will see Olympus acquire Odin’s entire portfolio of AI solutions, enabling Odin’s life-saving technology to reach millions of new patients around the world.

Albion Capital backed Odin Vision with early-stage funding in 2019 via the UCL Technology Fund (UCLTF), which is managed in collaboration with UCL Business.

Every year, there are just under two million new diagnoses of colon cancer and over 50 million colonoscopies. Current methods of detection miss or misclassify 25% of polyps, leading to increased time, costs, and risks for patients. Odin Vision’s technology has the potential to help clinicians increase the accuracy and frequency of early-stage detection of polyps, significantly improving patient survival rate. It also allows for a significant improvement in patient experience, with a reduction in waiting times for results and costs.

Odin Vision began with the research of Patrick Brandão, Professor Danail Stoyanov, and Professor Laurence Lovat at Wellcome Trust and EPSRC Centre for Surgical Sciences, UCL. Their pioneering work developed polyp detection systems which assisted doctors in the detection of colorectal cancer. Their research was then spun out and led to the founding of Odin Vision.

Peter Mountney, CEO of Odin Vision commented:

“I'm incredibly proud of the team. We started with a university research project at UCL and transformed it into a commercial healthcare technology that will help millions around the world in the fight against cancer.”

David Grimm, Investment Director at Albion’s UCLTF added:

“Odin are a fantastic example of world-class research at UCL being backed with capital and support to enable their entrepreneurial journey. It’s been wonderful to work with this great team and be part of their journey from laboratory to real-world, scaled impact and outstanding financial return.”