Feb 18, 2021 · 49m · neon-show
Dr. Geetha Manjunath on building Niramai, the most affordable product for breast cancer detection
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In this episode of the 100x Entrepreneur podcast, Dr. Geetha Manjunath, founder and CEO of Niramai, discusses how her team developed Thermalytix—an AI-powered, radiation-free, and affordable breast cancer screening solution. She shares her journey from corporate research to building a deep-tech healthcare startup, navigating clinical validation, fundraising, and expanding accessible preventive oncology across India and international markets.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
Siddhartha as informed peer 1.7 Guest teaching 4.6 Guest disagreement 0.3 Siddhartha pushing back 0.1
speaking balance: gold is Siddhartha, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 42:50 Clarifying executive role and detachment from titles
The guest gently pushes back against the host's assumption about her day-to-day CTO workload, clarifying that senior functional heads run daily engineering while stating she has zero attachment to executive chairs.
Hardest push from Siddhartha ▶ 41:52 Questioning dual CEO/CTO bandwidthThe host directly questions whether balancing both CEO and CTO roles is consuming too much bandwidth and probes whether she needs to recruit external CXOs.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 23:37 Technical critique of mammography in dense breast tissueThe guest delivers a comprehensive clinical masterclass on why traditional mammograms fail on younger women due to fibroglandular tissue opacity, contrasting it with thermal sensing.
Siddhartha holds their own ▶ 35:40 Framing the difficulty of deep-tech healthcare in IndiaThe host shows an informed grasp of the startup landscape by distinguishing Niramai's deep hardware-software integration from typical medicine delivery and distribution plays.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Siddhartha as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Siddhartha pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Philosophy of Karma Yoga and Lifelong Learning | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 | The host warmly praises the guest's extensive accolades and asks what drives her high achievement. The guest modestly deflects the praise, sharing her grounding philosophy in Karma Yoga and focusing on the enjoyment of the task itself. | |
| Early Upbringing, Engineering Passion, and Research Career | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | The host asks an open biographical question about the guest's upbringing. The guest delivers an extended narrative detailing her engineering education, IISc research, CDAC supercomputing work, and career at HP and Xerox. | |
| Global Perspectives and Common Problem Solving | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | The host asks brief questions regarding the guest's roots and the origin of Niramai. The guest shares the personal motivation behind founding the company following family tragedies with breast cancer. | |
| Milestones: Clinical Acceptance, Screening Camps, and Home Screening | 1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | The host asks about company milestones, and the guest details the journey from hospital clinical pilots to rural screening camps and home screening innovations during COVID-19. | |
| Thermalytix vs. Mammography: Technology and Advantages | 2 | 8 | 0 | 0 | The host asks how Niramai's technology compares to mammograms. The guest provides an in-depth technical explanation covering dense breast tissue limitations in younger women, radiation risks, and Thermalytix's quantitative 400,000 temperature point ML model. | |
| Pricing Strategy, Geographic Footprint, and Dana Entrepreneurs | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | The host inquires about per-test pricing and geographical deployment. The guest breaks down hospital versus rural camp triaging economics and the new Danu entrepreneur program. | |
| Fundraising Milestones and Navigating HealthTech Investment | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | The host asks about fundraising milestones and scaling challenges. The guest outlines the fundraising cycle from Pi Ventures at seed stage through Series A with Japanese investors, highlighting hardware capex requirements. | |
| Challenges in HealthTech: Clinical Rigor and Overcoming Skepticism | 2 | 7 | 1 | 0 | The host asks about healthtech roadblocks and India's potential to innovate in healthcare. The guest emphasizes clinical rigor, overcoming historical thermography skepticism, and running blind trials on challenging hospital cases. | |
| Dual Leadership: Balancing CEO and CTO Responsibilities | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | The host asks whether holding dual CEO and CTO roles strains bandwidth and if she plans to hire replacements to focus on core innovation. The guest clarifies that day-to-day tech operations are already delegated and affirms she has no attachment to any specific title. | |
| Inflection Points, Regulatory Milestones, and Platform Expansion | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | The host asks what inflection point will trigger organic market pull. The guest discusses achieving ISO and CE certifications, expanding internationally, and applying the thermal platform to other abnormalities. |
Statements from this episode (18)
Niramai was the only Indian startup in CB Insights' 2019 AI 100 list
“Her company, Niramai, is the only Indian company listed in the 2019 cohort of AI hundred startups in the world by global business data intelligence platform, CB Insights.”
Dr. Geetha Manjunath worked on India's first supercomputer at C-DAC
“Then I joined as one of the proud team members of the first supercomputer from India, from SIDAC, and that was my dream job.”
Manjunath: Breast cancer kills 90,000 in India and 600,000 globally each year
“Here is a problem which is taking away 90,000 lives in India alone and more than 600,000 lives around the world when breast cancer is a completely curable type of cancer, right?”
Manjunath: BMS Hospital became Niramai's reference customer within six months
“Within about six months or so we were able to convince a hospital to provide the solution in, their, you know, as a reference customer BMS hospital gave this as a test in their own hospital.”
Mammography is the only test proven to increase survival rates
“And actually it's one of in fact, it's the only test which is proven to increase you know, increase the survival rates of women in terms of, you know, really large clinical trials and so on.”
Mammography fails for women under 45 due to dense breast tissue
“It does not work on women under 45 years of age because what we call as dense press, you know, The kind of fibroglandial tissue that many of the men who are like about what if I also have this and also younger women definitely have this. So, so the whole breas…”
Niramai Measures 400,000 Temperature Points Per Patient with Thermal Sensors
“So like per person, we measure 400,000. That is four lakh temperature points with these high resolution high sensitivity thermal sensors, thermal cameras.”
Niramai's thermal tech works on all ages and men regardless of density
“It does work on women of all age groups because it does not depend on density. It just depends on body temperature and which all of us have similar. It does work on male as well, not just for women.”
Niramai's hospital screening costs 1,500 INR, one-third of a mammogram
“So in a hospital, it's about one third the cost of a mammography machine, mammography tests, sorry, which basically can be around 1500 rupees in India.”
Niramai's automated rural triage screening costs just 100 INR per test
“And so, so this, ah, is, this is almost hundred rupees per test, assuming the hardware is covered.”
Niramai's breast cancer screening is deployed across 15 Indian cities
“So now we have it in 15 cities in India established in multiple, like Bangalore, Delhi, Chennai, Mysore, Bhuvaneswar, Dehradun, all of these places, Savopal, all of these places we do have the test available.”
Niramai Has Screened 30,000+ Women Across 70+ Hospitals
“Thankfully we do have 30,000 plus women, you know, who are able to come and stand in front of us and like take the test, you know, it's the trust of the end users and we have 70 plus hospitals who have actually fully convinced their doctors, convinced their ma…”
Niramai pitched 40 to 50 investors to raise $6M Series A
“We raised six million in this CDCA, and we and I actually met multiple investors this time, you know, many, many more investors than we met in seed round you know. 40, 50 investors, right”
Dream Incubator Led Niramai's Series A Alongside BEENEXT
“Dream incubator came in as a lead investor. Then we have Bnext and a couple of strategic investors also coming in.”
Healthtech startups must validate on real patients, not lab results
“Clinical efficacy of the result is very, very important. We can't say we will do a health tech startup and go with the lab level, you know, result, you know. Trying to show this work on real patients of walking into a hospital and trying to show that your solu…”
Every clinician who tested Niramai's screening tool has purchased it
“Anyone who has tested actually sort of gone ahead and bought the solution.”
Niramai completes ISO 13485 audit and awaits CE mark clearance
“Recently, as I mentioned, we also got an ISO 34 85 clearance, as in, we finished the audit and we're expecting the certificate at any time, and also a CE marking.”
Niramai's thermal tech can be applied to detect other cancers
“It's a technology that we have developed and can be used for several other types of cancers because all other types of cancers or many, many Of those also depict a similar thermal signature that we can find too. So not just for cancer as well, this can be used…”