Egypt-Based Rology Secures Funding To Scale Its AI-Powered Teleradiology Platform Across The MEA

As demand accelerates for faster, more accessible diagnostic imaging across the Middle East and Africa (MEA), Cairo-based healthtech startup Rology has closed a growth funding round to support the regional expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered teleradiology platform.

The investment in Rology brought together impact-driven partners aligned around improving access to healthcare in low- and middle-income countries, with backers including the Netherlands-based Philips Foundation, US-based Johnson and Johnson Impact Ventures, US-based MIT Solve Innovation Future Fund, and France-based Sanofi Global Health Unit’s Impact Fund.

Founded by Amr Abodraiaa, Mahmoud Eldefrawy, and Moaaz Hossam in Cairo in 2017, Rology is an AI-assisted teleradiology platform that links medical imaging with remote radiologists and automated diagnostic support. Its cloud-based system eliminates the need for upfront information technology (IT) infrastructure, enabling hospitals and clinics to upload scans and receive reports in as little as 30 minutes.

In a conversation with Inc. Arabia, the company’s leadership team offered a peek into Rology’s origins. “The company was born from a very real problem we experienced on the ground: hospitals and centers across the MEA were struggling with severe radiologist shortages, long reporting delays, and no access to sub-specialized expertise,” Abodraiaa, co-founder and CEO of Rology, said. “Our first minimum viable product was built for a radiology center in a rural area of Egypt that lacked a picture archiving and communication system; they had to burn scans onto DVDs and send them once a week to a consultant in a larger city, resulting in a significant loss of time for patients. We designed a simple cloud-based workflow that allowed images to be uploaded and reported remotely—this became the seed of the Rology platform."

Since then, the Rology platform has gone on to become an AI-assisted teleradiology system that’s been used to deliver more than 1.3 million radiology reports to over 300 hospitals in 13 countries in the MEA. Supporting both public and private healthcare providers, including facilities in underserved and remote areas, the platform has notably also been cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration. "Today, Rology is headquartered in Cairo with regional offices in Saudi Arabia and Kenya," Abodraiaa added. "Our core mission is to close the radiology access gap by combining an AI-enabled teleradiology platform with a distributed network of expert radiologists—helping hospitals deliver fast, accurate radiology reports, often within minutes, without the need for heavy on-premise IT infrastructure, or onsite specialists."

At first glance, the MEA region might seem an unlikely setting for tech like AI-powered teleradiology to emerge. But Eldefrawy, co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of Rology, argues that realities on the ground left little alternative but for it to become a frontline solution. “Many hospitals in the region do not have enough radiologists or access to sub-specialists, cannot afford heavy legacy systems, and cannot ask patients to wait weeks for a report,” Eldefrawy pointed out. “At the same time, connectivity, cloud infrastructure, and digital health regulation in several MEA countries have matured quickly, especially after the COVID-19 crisis, and governments have shown a clear willingness to adopt telehealth and AI when they directly solve capacity and access gaps.”

Eldefrawy also highlighted that building for impact has ensured that he and his team at Rology will design “from the bedside outward,” not “from the algorithm inward.” “Rology is a Middle Eastern and African solution built around our own problems, not imported assumptions,” Eldefrawy added. “Our models are designed to work in low-bandwidth environments, integrate with very different hospital setups, and support radiologists rather than replace them. We design with specific clinical outcomes in mind—turnaround time, accuracy, and cost per report—and we embed human-in-the-loop safeguards, quality audits, and continuous feedback from clinicians in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, and other markets where our tools are used every day.” 

All of this has allowed Rology to evolve from an early mover in the region to a platform operating at scale. “When we started in Egypt, our first job was to introduce the very concept of teleradiology and remote reporting to the market as an early mover; today, that model is becoming the norm,” Eldefrawy said. “The next step for us is AI-driven, AI-native teleradiology and radiology reporting—combining AI, remote reporting, and even mobile radiology workflows—first across the MEA, and increasingly at a global level.”

As Rology thus scales across markets with differing levels of infrastructure, its ability to serve both advanced digital hospitals and facilities with minimal resources has become central to its value proposition. “One of our biggest lessons is that you need a single platform that is flexible enough to operate in both ‘tier-1 digital hospitals’ and low-resource settings without forcing everyone into the same workflow,” Hossam, co-founder and Chief Business Officer of Rology, explained. “In high-tech environments, Rology integrates deeply with existing hospital information systems (HIS), radiology information systems (RIS), picture archiving and communication systems (PACS), and other hospital systems, focuses on sub-specialization, throughput, and advanced AI-assisted reporting, and delivers value by improving efficiency and quality at scale.”  

“In low-resource or fragile settings, we often become the first real radiology capacity layer,” Hossam continued. “There, the value is more fundamental: enabling access to diagnostics in the first place through zero-setup, browser-based tools, offline-tolerant workflows, very simple onboarding, and eliminating the need for heavy, expensive legacy systems when they are not available or affordable. What matters most in these environments is reliability, simplicity, and clinical safety. That’s why the same clinical 'engine' powers both segments: whether it’s a large digital hospital or a small facility in a low-resource setting, we aim to deliver the same level of accuracy and speed in reporting. The platform is designed to degrade gracefully if connectivity is weak, and to keep the radiologist firmly in control of the final decision in every context.” 

Such operating conditions have informed how Rology’s co-founders think about building healthcare technology in complex markets, and they were happy to share their insights with their peers in the region. “A few lessons stand out for us,” Abodraiaa said. “First, you have to solve the core problem, not a side problem. In our case, the real issue in many MEA markets was not ‘how to buy more hardware,’ but the absence of radiologists and sub-specialized radiologists, combined with the heavy, expensive infrastructure required for traditional imaging workflows. That led to a lack of diagnosis and reporting in the first place; so, we focused on enabling capacity and access, not selling more machines.”

“Second, design with clinicians, not around them,” Abodraiaa continued. “When you are touching patient care, trust is as important as accuracy. Radiologists and physicians must feel that the system reflects their reality and supports their judgment. Third, assume from day one that you are building for uneven infrastructure: low bandwidth, intermittent power, fragmented systems, and very different hospital setups. Resilience is not a nice-to-have; it has to be a core product feature.”

“Fourth, always keep a human in the loop,”  Abodraiaa added. “For mission-critical healthcare technology, AI should augment clinicians rather than attempt to bypass them. The safest and most adoptable systems are those where the clinician remains the final decision-maker. Finally, impact at scale in fragmented health systems comes from deep local partnerships and humility. You can’t ‘airdrop’ a solution into the MEA. You have to co-create with hospitals, ministries of health, and health programs, measure outcomes rigorously, and be willing to adapt your product and business model to very different realities from one country to another.”

Pictured in the lead image are Rology co-founders Moaaz Hossan, Amr Abodraiaa, and Mahmoud Eldefrawy. All images courtesy Rology.