Johannesburg clinical data company BioInformatiCo plans to open a seed funding round in the next two to three months. The money will help it grow its Leova AI platform, TechFinancials reported.
Leova automates major parts of building and testing the databases used in clinical trials. The company wants to take the tool beyond its own work and offer it more widely.
“Before the first participant can enrol, study teams may spend 10 to 20 weeks building and testing the database that will capture the study’s data,” said Shirley Collie, founder and CEO of BioInformatiCo. She said this preparation is costly for grant-funded African researchers working on vaccines for diseases such as HIV, TB and Ebola.
Every clinical trial starts with a protocol. It sets out what researchers will study, who can take part, what data must be collected and how it will be judged.
Turning that protocol into a working database is slow, skilled work. Data managers and programmers build forms, set up checking rules and test the system. Mistakes can harm data quality and lead to costly rework.
Leova puts these steps into one process. It reads the study protocol, builds the database and tests it before any real patient data is entered.
Collie said that in one study, Leova cut database testing and checking from five days of specialist work to one. She said the tool tests the system with fake participants to find gaps before they become real data problems.
“Leova was born out of a real operational need,” Collie said. “We understand the pressure clinical research teams face to deliver reliable data, meet demanding standards and make every Rand count.”
The platform came second out of 19 entries in one category of the 2026 CDISC AI Innovation Challenge. That category focused on AI that creates synthetic data for testing. The whole challenge drew 50 submissions from 30 organisations and individuals around the world.
CDISC sets clinical data standards used in drug research and in submissions to regulators. Leova was presented at the CDISC US Interchange in Denver in October 2026.
BioInformatiCo does not simply license the software for clients to run themselves. It delivers checked databases together with its own data management staff. It bills by project milestones rather than by the hour.
Professor Glenda Gray, Director of the Infectious Disease and Oncology Research Institute at Wits, spoke about the need for local data systems. “African researchers need to be able to own, control and evaluate their own data,” she said.
Gray is a past President and CEO of the South African Medical Research Council. The company said it is inviting interested investors and funders to make contact before the planned seed round opens.
Source: this article is based on reporting by TechFinancials. Image: TechFinancials. Written with the help of AI and published by the Tzaneen Voice Technology desk. See our Editorial Standards.
Werner Jacobs covers technology for Tzaneen Voice. Werner reports on mobile networks, data prices, internet access, smartphones, apps, AI, cybersecurity and South African tech companies. Each story explains what a new product, price change or policy means for ordinary users in South Africa.