Good morning, and welcome to Aiforia's first half's earnings announcement. And today, so we will share some information. Results in brief, financial review, and a little bit about the strategy, how we move forward. So it was a pretty interesting and busy six months, January to June 2024, and we actually got the progress in multiple areas. You know, that this market that we are in, so in digital pathology AI, so it's really kind of picking up. It's a market so that there's a huge demand, so there's customers with the active problem recognition, and they are actively looking for solutions.
I've been talking about how the market is moving forward because demand is there, so the aging population, need for technology to kind of bring the efficiency and other benefits to this market, so that's happening big time at the moment. There was this phase that we deal with the early adopters, and I think we are now moving the first kind of phase that, so we are crossing the chasm, so we are with the first bigger customers on a clinical side as well. And what happened, some of the things here, so the Mayo Clinic, one of our first and probably the most important reference customer what we have, so we won Mayo about two years ago already.
So we've been delivering different solutions, so on a clinical side and a research side, and a cooperation with Mayo is moving forward nicely. And a big thing in January, what we did, so we started to commercialize colorectal cancer model together, so built by Mayo, and then commercialization happening through Aiforia . And this is something new, so it's having an Aiforia 's AI tools, and then combining with the predictive models, and then they can predict the kind of a patient outcomes using those models. Then in the European area, so I think this was a really kind of a nice start because now we got the first bigger customers. Last year, we won the Veneto region, which is more or less the same size as the country of Finland.
What comes to a population, so 5.5 million people, 12 different hospitals. We sold all our kind of CE-IVD mark solutions, so those have been implemented and delivered, and now they're waiting for the scanners, new scanners to come so that they can ramp up the volume. But that was a starting point. And there are multiple opportunities in Italy at the moment. So we won a big deal in Spain, so we got the good progress in France, so multiple opportunities in the pipeline, so some nice wins. And I think one of the big ones was the AP-HP. So they've been announcing already so that they start using. They tested Aiforia against our main competitors and chose us. So they secured the budget, and it is in a purchasing process.
But that's probably the biggest AP-HP hospital group in Europe, so and it's really a significant thing for us. But all in all, in Europe, a lot of good progress and, of course, the Fimlab deal, I will cover that a little bit in a later show, but I think we are very happy on what's happening in the European area. And of course, on the product side, so we kind of focused also on a preclinical sector, bring some new nice offerings to customers. We did the funding round, roughly about EUR 10 million raised, so that's really a positive thing for us going forward.
Before going to the numbers, I think this is a really interesting and important thing to kind of recognize all of these deals that we have won, because we have multiple competitors, let's say that handful, which have a similar type of solutions and certifications in place. I believe that we have the strongest position on actual live implementation and big customer wins. I mentioned about the Mayo, so the breast cancer solutions are live already in the clinical side, over one year already now.
There's 70 pathologists, or over 70 pathologists, working on our Create development platform, and they're building their own AI models, and there's a lot of scientific papers coming out from that activity, and also AI models that in the later stages they can put it in production in a clinical side. Mayo is going strong, and in the European area, Fimlab, the kind of group from the Tampere region in Finland, and that's a big thing. I noticed that some of our competitors also kind of announced the kind of the umbrella contract that it was a public tender, and we responded on that.
There are kind of at least three different vendors, kind of on the umbrella contract, which is nice because that gives a customer a choice if they need that. But what I can say about the Aiforia 's role here, so they actually chose vendors for nine different areas, and Aiforia was chosen for all of those. Some other vendors for kind of some areas, but not all. We were the only one who was chosen in all nine categories. Category number ten, nobody was chosen on that one, so it relates to skin cancer. But all of those solutions or categories that they chose somebody, we were chosen. What is even more important, after the first half of the year, we got also the first order.
So we are in a phase of kind of jointly delivering the solution to Fimlab. So we won now the kind of categories one, two, and three, where there was a competition, but so we got the purchase order in this case, and it's a sizable deal. The whole kind of big tender is about EUR 6 million, and it's public information, so and but the AI part is not EUR 6 billion, so it's a little bit less, but still a really significant deal from our perspective. So and now the thing is that we need to deliver it really carefully and well, and we have a good chance of going forward with the rest of the kind of areas as well.
And so that's a positive news, and it's a really kind of a frontrunner in Finland in the AI adoption, so it's a big thing for us. Then, Castile and León region in Spain, so that was a big one as well. We do it together with the Sectra, a Swedish image management vendor, so together, so it's a multi-year contract and a sizable deal, and we sold our breast, prostate, and lung cancer solutions there. It's now going to an implementation phase. I mentioned about the Veneto. It's a big one, so 5.5 million people, and it's a great reference in the Italian market because now there is +10 similar type of regions in Italy.
They all have a funding from a European Union, so they have this COVID recovery fund in place, and they need to invest that money before end of 2026. I think that there's a good chance on kind of really capturing the opportunity in the Italian market, but having Veneto as one of the leading regions there, as an example and reference, so that helps us on going after the other ones. Catania, obviously, so we already got an order from there, and a PathLAKE in the U.K., so NHS, so it's in the delivery phase, and that's going nicely as well, but from a business perspective, the biggest change happened in Europe in the first half of the year.
We are very, really confident on this region moving forward nicely. Then briefly about the numbers, our CFO, Veli-Matti, will go deeper on the numbers, but this just highlights. Our revenues grew 43%, which is okay. The business is really still international, so 10% coming from Finland, 90% from the other regions. And as I said, the European area was picking up nicely, but keep in mind, we are still in fairly small numbers at that, okay? If we make a big deal in Europe, then these kinds of percentages will kind of change very quickly.
But, all in all, I think the positive sign is that, okay, so there's a decent growth on that side, and also the order book was growing nicely, so there's about EUR 800,000 growth on that side. And I also would like to make a point that, okay, all of those or most of those big deals that we closed in the first half, we haven't recognized the revenue in the first half. So we closed the deals. We may have got already the purchase order in and so on, but when we deliver, we start recognizing the revenue, and, and also that, okay, so those are multi-year contracts. So meaning that, okay, so you can see those, some of those things in a backlog already, but not necessarily on the revenue side.
So backlog was growing nicely, so as well as the revenue. We keep investing because it's a new business, and we need to be really careful so that we deliver what we need to deliver on our AI side, and making sure that we have all the APIs and supporting kind of software elements in place so that we can integrate on our surrounding systems and so on. Our costs, I think we are going to a right direction, so they are in a control and little bit less than a year ago, and we will really still need to keep a kind of a strong focus on that side as well, so that we have a nice amount of cash in our bank account, and we want to keep it that way.
So, okay, so we make sure that we can continue the company successfully and really capture the opportunity in this market. And the cash balance is in the last one, so about EUR 17.9 million. But now I will hand over to Veli-Matti to continue with the numbers, and I will come back a bit later and talk about the strategy and going forward.
Thanks, Jukka, and good morning to everyone. I think Jukka revealed all the numbers already, but let's repeat those one more time. Now here we go. Yeah, next, I will go through this first half numbers. The revenue growth was 43% or EUR 400,000-EUR 1.4 million. The growth came mainly from the clinical side, and that brought in about 40% of our revenue base. EBITDA was - 4.2, and EBIT was EUR - 6 million . Equity ratio was 67%, and we did have about EUR 18 million cash at the end of the period. Order book growth was 34%, as Jukka said, or EUR 800,000-EUR 3.2 million.
We did have about 76 people, employees, working for Aiforia on average during the first half. That's an increase of seven persons or 10% year earlier. We invested, I said, EUR 2.7 million, mainly on the research or intangible assets, R&D. Only a fraction of that is in tangible assets. We don't need any raw materials, warehousing, anything like that. It's pretty much software business as normal. Investments came down about EUR 500,000 from year earlier figures, and that is because our fixed costs went down about 7%, from EUR 8.4 million- EUR 7.8 million.
As employee costs went up about 5%, the other operating costs went down 16%. That is because we were capable of first hiring new software developers, but at the same time, we were capable of decreasing the number of software consultants working for us. Also, we were capable of trimming some of the costs from the cloud spending. We are running currently our fixed costs slightly over EUR 15 million level, and I keep pretty close eye on those costs. Then the cash flow from operations improved by EUR 800,000 from year earlier, from EUR -4.6 million to EUR -3.8 million.
And as said, we have promised that figure to be break even by the end of next year. Back to you.
Thank you, Veli-Matti.
Thanks.
So let's continue with the strategy and execution. As I said in the beginning, so we are in an interesting market. So what we do, so we actually kind of automate what pathologists are doing. So we are kind of supporting the diagnostic. So we do the kind of quantitative analysis on those tissue samples that are processed in that process, so that you can analyze whether you have a cancer or not cancer, and how bad is that, and what type of a treatment you need to have. So the market is interesting. So we are kind of dealing with the very small kind of physical size of samples that contains a huge amount of data. So we are dealing with the gigabyte size of files.
It's really important that you capture the information from those slides really kind of precisely and carefully and efficiency as well. That's what we do, and the market is there, as I said. There's an active problem recognition, because there's about hundred thousand pathologists in the world. There is about three billion glass slides that are diagnosed every year, typically done with the traditional process, with the microscope, and now moving to a digital, and then kind of leveraging the AI to automate the process. The demand is there, because number of pathologists is not going up, and the cancer cases and the need to diagnose is really kind of going up, and there's a growing gap between those two things.
And now we have proven that, okay, so we have the technology, we have a good references, and we can help on sort out those issues, and that's the business where we are at. So we are really focusing on capturing the clinical opportunity, for sure, and making sure that, okay, so they can handle the huge workflows what they have, and we can kind of open up also kind of new opportunities to leverage the digital information. So and, like as an example, the product that we developed together with Mayo Clinic, the Quant CRC, so that you can take it to a next level.
So you leverage the AI and quantitative analysis, and then you put in predictive models and predicting patient outcomes and making a better treatment decision, because that. So the AI is opening up that type of opportunities. And of course, in research, in pharma, so we are still strong, and we want to kind of make sure that, okay, so we keep those good customers and sell more to those customers, because they have also a need. Because when you do a new drug on drug development, so you need to do a lot of kind of studies before. So we have a tools for that, so we have the tools to kind of build AI models and streamline the kind of drug development and faster the go-to-market on that side.
So we have a good offering in place, but obviously now, going forward, next coming years, we need to grow, and we put a lot of effort on that. So we have captured a nice opportunities now, so we need to make sure that we deliver those extremely well. We upsell those customers, because we have sold five AI models, but they probably need the 20 or 30 AI models going forward. So and thinking is that, okay, so all of these bigger customers, what we have, we need to make sure that, okay, so they stay and they grow, and then we need to get an, of course, additional similar type of customers. And going forward two or three years, so then the market will start hitting the volume in a way, so there's a regulation in place, so there's references in place.
There's a kind of a blueprint for kind of other hospitals how to do these things, and they can be confident if the leading organizations like the Mayo or the AP-HP, the Paris hospital region, or Veneto, or Fimlab, or any of these players, they have done it, they are using it. Then the other kind of organizations can be confident as well, so that they actually kind of leverage the benefits as well, and start using the solution. The things are there, so the need is there, and the solutions are there.
We just need to make sure that, okay, so we can scale and we can keep the confidence so that we have a best-in-class product, so that they can rely on the results as well, because we are, of course, dealing with the very, very critical things, so we cannot make mistakes, but as you know, when we did this, for example, with the CE-IVD solution, then they are tested against the human pathologist, so that the AI is performing at least in the same level as the humans, then it was getting the approvals. We can do a good job on making the pathologist more efficient on this game, but really, a lot of focus on growth on the next coming years, making sure that our product offering is competitive.
It is at the moment, so we have a significant kind of advantages against the key competitors at the moment. Most of the competition is doing so-called heat maps so that they can say from the samples that, okay, whether you have a cancer or not cancer, or might have a cancer, not cancer. Showing some heat maps that, okay, where the pathology needs to still traditionally focus on and diagnose the solution. In our case, as you know, we go a little bit deeper, so we do a quantitative analysis. We do the kind of building the tools in a kind of annotations in a pixel level, so we can capture the smallest piece of information from those slides, and then we do a quantitative analysis.
We do the calculations with the different, different cells and, and so on. So we give all the information that they can do the diagnosis, and we give it in a ready-made report, and that's also an extremely important thing so that, so first you see the slide, then you get the report, all the calculations, and then the pathologist is verifying the results, and then it goes, goes to a kind of a treatment decision for, for the doctor who makes the treatment decision. So it's really an automation tool, but also kind of opening up some things that, human eye just can't do. And of course, the people.
See, we have a fantastic team in place, so we have a strong tech team, so we have a very strong science team, and we are having a really good sales team as well. So and we need to make sure that, okay, our small team is actually all top talent and perform well, and we are really happy with our people at the moment. So and they've been delivering the best in the world solution, and now we've been successfully taking that in the market as well. So anyway, so these are the kind of focus areas going forward. And then if we think about the business targets longer term or mid-term, so we want to kind of be in a clinical side, make sure that we provide the automation.
Now, it means that. Okay, so we deliver the AI tools, not just the algorithms, but all the kind of APIs and the needed tools that you can implement on a hospital system. You can collaborate with the other systems that are needed as well, and really be as a kind of a solid software company who delivers the products and maintain the products as well, so and further develop. So that, that's the business that we are in. Then 2027, we should have the first profitable year, because now it's an investment phase and this is a new business, building a solution, opening up the market. So and we've been doing that successfully. 2027, so we should be in the black on the numbers.
Of course, it's a huge opportunity, getting us to a 100+ million level should be the target for this decade. Then, of course, we can leverage this technology in multiple other areas, because at the end of the day, if we look at Aiforia as a technology company, we have a fantastic platform to diagnose whatever kind of huge picture files when you're looking for very tiny details, and we could think about the different solutions on that side. One example, for example, is Zomedica from the U.S. market. So that was one of the nice deals in the first half of the year. So that's in a veterinary pathology area.
So they're building their own device and own solution, end-to-end solution for that market, and we are providing the technology for them. So that, so when they start kind of a mass production of their devices, so then Aiforia technology is in that. Now, the first purchase was really to kind of buy the development platform, but going forward, it's an opportunity to grow that alongside their sales as well. And of course, we need to get those big accounts, and we need to make sure that they are happy and using us, and that's what we are aiming to do. Shorter term, so this year there's only kind of four, five months left, but and next year, so we will bring these AI models in the market.
And as you all know, so there was this regulation change two years ago from CE-IVD, IVDR. So we've been tackling those things, and we will bring new models in the market shortly. So I think the solutions are ready, but then it's about getting the regulation done, and then we can announce those things. But it's moving forward. And then, of course, the partnerships. So I think this is a really important thing. So obviously, we work with the Google and Amazon, and all of these kind of a big cloud providers, and that's a big thing, so for providing the kind of the platform and technology behind.
But then, of course, we have the scanner manufacturers, we have the image management companies, we have the picture and archiving type of solutions that we need to work with. And we are kind of partnering with all of those, and it in most of the cases, it actually comes through the successful customer cases, and we do the first implementations of these systems. But as I said, so Sectra is in the Mayo. Sectra is now in Castile and León region in Spain, so that's moving forward nicely. And there are multiple similar type of companies that we collaborate on this area.
Sometimes even with the competitors, so that they have something that we might not have, and and we certainly have something that they don't have, so we collaborate with them as well. Then achieving these key accounts, and now the, where the potential is, over EUR 500,000 or more per year, and it doesn't mean that, okay, in the first year it's a EUR 500,000, but okay, so it has an opportunity to grow because, I think this is kind of a land-and-expand type of a strategy, so that we first implement a couple of AI models and, and make it in a production. So and then we can start expanding the offering inside those customers. But, that's a really important one, and, and we've been moving forward with that target nicely.
Operating cash flow positivity end of next year, and we are on track to achieving that as well. There's a lot of things what we need to do. We need to close deals. We need to keep the cost under control, and currently feels like that. We are on the right track to doing all of those and delivering all of those things. Now it's time for Q&A. I don't know if Veli-Matti wants to come in the front as well?
Yeah, yeah. So if it's a difficult question, so then I say this guy here.
Hey, it's Antti Luiro from Inderes. I could pick up first on the revenue for first half. Obviously, it was lower than H2 last year, and U.S. declined from H2 last year to H1 this year. Considering that Mayo seemed to at least go live with more models, and of course, you, you say they're doing a lot of work with Aiforia. Can you explain a bit what's going on with the U.S. revenue?
U.S. is. I think, okay, so we are talking small numbers, and as I said in the beginning, so that, okay, if you close one deal, so then it's higher and lower. So Mayo continues in a small growth. We could see a little bit of faster growth with them, so, but it will come. So important thing is that the Mayo has those in the production, and they have plans to kind of increase the usage, so that, that's happening. And then the research work is happening. So the Mayo is solid.
But then in the U.S., the thing is that, okay, so there's this FDA track that we are also kind of now moving forward on a regulatory side, so, but the FDA hasn't really make up their mind how to do it, because currently, if you want to have an FDA-approved solution, you need to have a scanner FDA-approved, you need to have an image management system FDA-approved, and then the AI. And then all of those things needs to work together. So none of the competition has those, and we've been able to sell in the clinical side having these LDT processes in place, laboratory developed test process, so that and bigger organizations that, like Mayo, they do it themselves, and they continue to do it, but it's a costly process.
To be fair, I think it's slowing down the adaptation in the U.S. The positive side is that, okay, so there are those CPT codes, the reimbursement codes for breast cancer in place, so that could be something that starts picking up faster because it's in the U.S., it all comes back to the money thing, so we've been closing preclinical deals, so we closed this Zomedica, which is in the veterinary area, because there is no kind of a regulatory burden on that side, so those are the kind of quicker, kind of growth opportunities. Most of the competition is also focusing now on a preclinical side, but we have those few hospitals, and we grow them.
When the regulatory environment is changing, so then I think U.S. will kind of ramp up fairly quickly. But I don't know whether this answer your question or not, so but.
Yeah, and the next one as well.
Yeah
Almost. But, I'll continue on it.
Yeah
As still. So, obviously, in Europe, it's, it's been very good progress for you, and there, the regulatory framework is in place, and you have the CE-IVD mark models. So is it right to assume that once the FDA framework is in place, and you start getting those FDA-approved models, that should be an unlock for growth in U.S.?
Yeah, as a political answer, yes and no. I said yes, obviously, so because it's a good thing, so that yeah, when you have that approval, so then it gives a confidence for the end customers to purchase a solution. But we have good examples that one of the competitors has FDA-approved AI models. They haven't sold those because it's only linked to one image management system and one scanner, so that's a Philips scanner. But if the customer wants to have a Leica scanner, so then it's not anymore an FDA-approved solution. So anyway, that's the difficulty, but I think the U.S. market is expecting to have kind of solid products that doesn't need too much tailoring.
Little bit tailoring that, okay, so it you can fine-tune it, but it has to be kind of something that, okay, so they can buy it, implement, and start using it. But, but having said that, so they, there are really kind of a significant size of opportunities in a, in a U.S. market, in a play as well.
Right. Then on the key accounts, of course, you have the goal of getting 15 of those, now in the next one and a half years or so. You haven't yet commented on how many you have right now, but, is it correct to assume that most of the ones you publish, at least in a press release, would be within that region?
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah, but as I said, so we are on track achieving that goal and overachieving as well.
Yeah. Right.
Yeah.
I guess Europe will be the biggest driver, at least in the short term.
Europe is in a short term, for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's helpful. And then on revenue growth, and this might be the tough question you pass on to Veli. You have the target of going to positive profitability in 2027. And obviously, with the current growth rate, that's probably not going to cut it for 2027, so you would have to have faster relative growth going forward. So, are we looking at some sort of a hockey stick scenario closer to 2027, or how do you look at the revenue?
Yeah, that must be the case. I assume that of course the growth has to pick up a little bit more, and also we have to be really careful with the cost levels as well. So those are the combination of two that brings us to profitability for 2027.
Yeah. Right. And the assumptions going into that goal and what it takes to achieve it, I guess there is, of course, winning new customers, but I guess also the regulatory side needs to move forward for you to be able to do that. Is that correct to assume?
We can do it without the U.S., if you're referring to U.S. regulatory things.
Yeah.
So we can do it without that, because in Europe, the deal size is so we are now talking about EUR 1.3 million revenue in the first half or whatever number, but one single customer can bring a double or even more that revenue. It can have, but it's really hard to forecast, so when we close. I can give you an example. Like the Paris hospital region, so I think they have 38 hospitals. It's the biggest hospital group in Europe, so we were kind of competing against a couple of key players in the market. They tested, they chose us. Okay, they wanted to have us. Internally, they needed to fight the budget, so they fight the budget.
So and everything was ready to get the order, so then figuring out in France, so you need to have a certain kind of procurement and a purchasing process in place. So the purchasing process has taken now four, five months. It's done now, but okay. So those type of things they are not easy to predict, but now we are in those catalogs that every single other hospital in France can order it from the same catalog, so we don't need to do the same process.
But it's two hospitals out of 38, and having just a kind of a couple of AI models, meaning that, okay, so with those within those two hospitals, we can grow, and then if we can expand, let's say, half of those other hospitals, so then we are talking about the big things. Because just the French market is 10x bigger than Finland, and putting in a perspective again, the Veneto deal, same size as Finland, as a region. And those are big opportunities. So it could have a hockey stick, so but it's really hard to say that, okay we don't want to give an kind of a forecast that, okay, it will happen in a Q4, this and this.
So it might be next quarter, next quarter, but still we are on a right track, and you can see it from a backlog growth, because that's already kind of a confirmed revenue. When we recognize, we recognize when we deliver, and it's in a production and so on. We could be more aggressive on rev rec, so but we tend to be quite conservative on that.
Yeah, I mean.
With a good reason as well.
Yeah, of course. I mean, it's according to the IFRS regulations and rules, so. But one thing is everybody has to understand that we are changing from smaller deals, from preclinical side, like selling licenses, yearly licenses, recognizing them month-to-month basis. Now we are entering in the big 10, tenfold, twentyfold bigger deals in clinical size, and then there the recognition is totally different from those monthly license revenues. And that could fluctuate a bit, the growth rates. But as you said, that's, I mean, we need to have a bigger growth rate, something like close to 100% in some years to come.
I'm pretty positive that we could manage that, since the figures at the moment are so low, and there are a lot of opportunities that we are tackling at the moment.
Yeah, one thing to add, probably is that, okay, so we are moving from selling the research platform, the research group, to 10K deals, 20K deals, some university deals. We still do that, but those deals didn't bring the revenue big time. So and now, last year, when we closed the Veneto, that was roughly about EUR 1.3 million deal. So that's three years, so it's kind of. We expect that will continue, of course, and we can grow. The Spanish deal was also kind of really sizable. I don't know whether we announced the numbers. I guess we did.
I can't remember.
Yeah, but okay, so it was a good deal, and the Fimlab deal, some of the competition announced that, okay, they won the umbrella deal, and the whole kind of purchase is EUR 6 million, but it's a multimillion deal, and at least an opportunity level. The first three orders that we got is already kind of, let's say, okay, third biggest deal in the company's history. In a way, in the last two years we've been able to go to a clinical side, and suddenly we are talking about EUR 500,000, EUR 1 million, EUR 1.3 million, even bigger deals, so that, okay. That, that's a transformation. And when we start recognizing those type of opportunities, then are we growing from a EUR 1.3 million to something else?
Of course we are. But now we need to really focus on keep the kind of on selling, winning those big deals, and also, as importantly, delivering it really well. So because we want to see a happy customers using the solutions as well.
Right. So would it be right to read from this that you have faith in sort of the sales execution and being able to win the customers that get you to those targets? But then, of course, the timing it takes for those customers to go through the purchase process and for them to expand the usage of Aiforia, that's sort of the risk and the difficult part to estimate, then.
Yeah, so it's like in Mayo. In Mayo, we dealt with the lengthy delivery process. We learned a lot about that, so we kind of fine-tune the solution so that we can replicate in easier ways, so we can do faster deliveries. But when you have the first one, that's always taking a little bit more time. Now we are learning how to do the procurement in France. Well, now we have learned that, so and we can assume so that the next one should happen quicker. Of course, the public sector, the whole tendering process, it's good and bad. It takes a lot of time, but when it's done, it's done.
If you are part of that list of those selected companies, then you are in a nice position to move forward. In a way, it's good and bad, but okay. Learning on that as well.
Yeah. Yeah, I think that's all for me for now. Thank you.
Thank you.
Yes, let's take some questions from the chat. The first one is, "Can you elaborate a little bit on your technology compared to others?
The technology is a, it's a deep learning-based AI, meaning that we are focused on image analysis, so we deal with the kind of large picture files, and we do a kind of a pixel-level annotation. We have two things. We have the development platform, so that you can build your own AI models. It's called Aiforia Create. And then we have ready-made AI models, so then you go for the breast cancer, lung cancer, prostate cancer, all of those kind of regulatory approved models. But so those are the two main things: the development platform, ready-made tools, and then the APIs and integrations to a different surrounding system.
So but we are dealing with the software, not hardware, because in the whole process you need, of course, the sample preparation, staining, glass slides, digitization with the scanners. So that's the hardware part mostly. And then you have the software part, which is sharing those kind of images to right pathologists, managing the workflow, showing the images, because that's not a simple thing either, because as said, so it's a gigabyte size, so it's really much bigger than in a radiology. So and that's part of the technology, and then you have the AI.
That's okay in our AI, so we first kind of draw the areas where the problems are, and then we have the software tools that can calculate the kind of those areas and then populate the reports. And that differentiates us from most of the competition, who are doing that heat map type of analysis. It's just kind of the first screening level, and we can actually kind of support on doing the diagnosis. Long answer, but it's really advanced technology, and I think we have the best team in place on the technology side. We really kind of have expertise on AI and deep learning.
Thank you, and let's have some final question. Maybe this is to Veli-Matti.
Okay.
Do you have any plan to raise equity to accelerate your growth? And then also, can you elaborate on your M&A strategy, if you have any?
Of course, I mean, we are always looking opportunities anywhere, so that's ongoing business. The equity raising, I mean, currently we don't have any plans going on, but of course, if there is opportunities that needs more funding, so of course we take that opportunity as well. But there are other sources of funding available for us, so that we are pondering those and whether we need those or should we keep us going with the current funding what we have at the moment.
Thank you. Those were all the questions from the line.
Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you.