Founder & CEO - AI Pathology
Founder & CEO - Slidestream
Bringing high-quality pathology to the next billion patients
Location: Bangalore (Bengaluru), India
Start date: ASAP
Founders Factory builds and funds startups together with exceptional entrepreneurs and the world's leading companies. Created by IPO-exited founders, we offer founders capital, operational support from a team of hands-on experts, and unrivalled access to a coalition of industry-leading corporate partners. Since 2015, Founders Factory's 450+ portfolio companies have secured 500+ pilots and commercial contracts with our partners.
Our Studio partners with entrepreneurs at day one, developing new ideas, technologies and business models into high-growth companies. In partnership with a leading global industrial technology partner, we are building a new portfolio of ventures.
About the Venture
The blood smear is the frontline test for anaemia, leukaemia, infection and clotting disorders - a drop of blood read cell by cell under a microscope. In tier-2 and tier-3 India it is still read by eye, or often not at all. The reason is structural: Asia has 6.8 pathologists per million people versus 49 in North America, and fewer than 4 per million in much of Africa. The automated digital-morphology systems that could close the gap cost $50k+, out of reach for the small and mid-sized labs that need them, and labs without an on-site pathologist hand ~60% of every test fee to an outside reviewer - economics that only work at a volume they never reach.
We are building Slidestream: a sub-€4k scanner, already designed and built by our partner, that photographs the slide, flags abnormal cells with on-board AI, and routes cases to a remote specialist - working offline, with no cloud dependency.
The unfair advantage: our partner brings a cleared, low-cost prototype already built and CDSCO-cleared - trained on 5,000+ annotated data points with >80% accuracy on common morphologies, roughly two years of build already done - plus two decades of connected-device fleet management, an embedded compute and manufacturing cost base no medtech startup can match, and 35,000 engineers on the ground in Bengaluru for fast validation and distribution. Two independent investors ranked this concept their #1.
Our Offer
We don't just fund ideas - we co-build them. Join as Founder & CEO and get access to a full-stack venture studio offering designed to give you the best possible start:
€275k of spin-out capital plus a founder stipend + studio budget to build, validate, and launch
Expert Team: Hands-on support across product, growth, fundraising, AI/ML, design, legal, hiring, and more
MVP Build: Full-time venture builder(s) to help ship your first product
Accelerator: 6 months of deep operational support post-launch
Strategic Network: Intros to top-tier investors and corporate partners
Validation: A vetted concept, domain insight, and a head start in a massive market
Jobs to be Done
As Founder & CEO, you will be responsible for turning a strong thesis into a scaled, defensible business.
Define the wedge. Decide the beachhead buyer - private tier-2/3 lab owner vs. government/NGO - and the pricing model (subscription vs. per-use) that gets to revenue fastest.
Take a ready asset to market. Turn the cleared scanner into paying deployments across Indian labs, validating the price point and per-test economics.
Build the network. Recruit and grow the pooled telepathology specialist network that turns a device into a defensible marketplace.
Win the first labs. Land a lighthouse cluster of labs and prove the sample-to-result loop in a single visit.
Leverage partner IP. Work with our partner's Bengaluru engineering and fleet-management teams on device economics, manufacturing scale and connected-fleet operations.
Build the company. Hire the initial team, raise capital, and establish the venture as the diagnostic operating system for emerging markets.
Your Ideal Experience
We are not looking for a traditional diagnostics executive or a pure AI researcher. The ideal candidate sits at the intersection.
Founder or senior operator who has built a health-tech, med-tech, or diagnostics product from zero to one - ideally in India or comparable emerging markets.
Deep familiarity with at least one buyer segment: private diagnostic labs, hospital pathology, or government/NGO health procurement.
Commercial instinct for both selling devices into price-sensitive labs and building a two-sided network of labs and specialists.
Strong product and technical instincts: you can reason about edge AI, imaging, clinical validation and diagnostics regulation (CDSCO / CE) even if you are not writing the code yourself.
Comfortable operating in ambiguity: shaping the product, defining the buyer, and making calls with incomplete data.
Deep India-market credibility and networks, and willingness to be on the ground in Bengaluru.
Most importantly, you are motivated by building the diagnostic operating system for the next billion patients - bringing pathology to the labs the incumbents have priced out.
This is your company. We're here to help.