Startup of the Week: DermaSensor Inc.

In this edition, we present you DermaSensor Inc., a healthtech company revolutionizing skin cancer detection through AI-powered innovation. Their FDA-cleared handheld device allows physicians to quickly and non-invasively assess skin cancer risk, delivering instant, objective results. We spoke to Cody Simmons, CEO of DermaSensor, to learn more about the company’s mission, challenges, and the technology transforming early skin cancer diagnosis.

Tell us about your company.

Cody: DermaSensor Inc. has commercialized the first AI-powered skin cancer detection device. Our non-invasive, handheld device was cleared by FDA in 2024, empowering physicians in America to be able to provide their patients with an objective, immediate result for skin cancer risk. The company and device have received various awards (e.g. 2024 TIME Best Inventions List) and top-tier publications (e.g. Nature). With $27M raised prior to this Series B financing and supported by top institutional investors and medtech entrepreneurs, the handheld system has been used in 15 clinical studies and is already in use by hundreds of doctors scanning thousands of lesions a month.

What made you become an entrepreneur?

Cody: Even since college I've been drawn to the intersection of technology and life sciences. Then while doing graduate research at Stanford I worked with two other bioengineering graduate students/researchers to spin out technology from one of their labs. That experience really had me hooked on developing new medical products to benefit society. So I'm now on my third healthtech device startup and also spent a few years in business development and commercial roles at Genentech. It was a particular privilege to join Dr. Maurice Ferre, Chris Dewey and David Matlin in 2016 to begin building DermaSensor since my mother has had melanoma (early stage fortunately) and also I started having skin lesion biopsies as a teenager.

What is the most challenging part of running your own startup?

Cody: Balancing day-to-day execution needs with important longer term activities like team building, leadership and fundraising.

What is the biggest challenge you have faced when looking for funding?

Cody: Not fitting into typical medtech nor digital health product categories, while having hardware, being FDA regulated, and a HaaS business model, made it challenging over our financings to find investors that are comfortable with our company's risks. Fortunately, we were able to overcome the various product, then clinical and then regulatory risks and are quickly showing strong commercial traction, so we are in a much better position now in terms of fundraising.

What is the most rewarding aspect of entrepreneurship?

Cody: Executing so well that we "beat the odds" that many latch on to (especially investors). For example, less than 20% of De Novos for our applicable division of FDA receive clearance, and many competitors failed to achieve FDA clearance, but we accomplished that. In addition to beating those odds, dozens of investors and bankers scoffed at our plan to use digital marketing to drive private practice sales, since our device is a brand new and unknown product category, and only a few widely used medical devices had been able to sell to physicians in this way (e.g. handheld ultrasounds and AI-powered stethoscopes). Yet this has been extremely successful for us, as we are closing more than one account a day right now from digital marketing, while also having success with direct sales to many health systems.

Learn more about the company: https://www.dermasensor.com