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Meet The Doctor-Turned-Entrepreneur Using AI To Save Lives

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27.05.2026

Aengus Tran traded medical practice to build AI software that delivers quick and accurate diagnoses of X-rays and scans. Now, the 32-year-old CEO of Sydney-based Harrison.ai and a 30 Under 30 Asia alum is targeting America’s overstretched healthcare system.

While studying medicine in Sydney in 2015 with a view to specializing in cardiology, Aengus Tran did a two-month clinical placement in his native Vietnam that upended his plan. At the Tam Duc Cardiology Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, the doctor-to-be witnessed first-hand how the short-staffed hospital struggled to provide timely diagnoses to its patients. For Tran, it was a moment of clarity that medicine “needs a system-wide change, one based on technology that can read scans and make diagnoses instantly…and is run so effectively and efficiently that it is available to everyone,” he says.

With a mission to drive that change, he cofounded Harrison.ai, a clinical AI service provider, in 2018 in his final year of medical school with his older brother, Dimitry, then-head of innovation at Australian private hospital giant Ramsay Health Care. Using the country’s mature healthcare market as a testing ground, the pair developed AI software capable of analyzing chest X-rays and chest and brain CT scans, flagging critical cases and generating draft reports. The company says its software can cut diagnostic report turnaround times by up to 40% in time-critical cases and boost overall reporting speeds by 10%.

As of May, Harrison.ai’s software was being used by 3,400 clinicians in over 1,000 hospitals and clinics in more than 40 countries. Its two biggest markets are Australia, where it says it serves half the country’s roughly 3,200 registered radiologists, and the U.K., where it assesses more than a third of all chest X-rays for NHS England, part of the U.K.’s National Health Service. It also has a presence across Asia and in Europe.

Now Tran, 32, is targeting expansion in what he believes could become Harrison.ai’s biggest market, the U.S. “We’ve already built a very comprehensive AI that makes 455 different diagnoses and has been battle-tested,” says the 30 Under 30 Asia alum from 2020. “The U.S. is our next corridor.”

The startup’s $112 million Series C funding round in February last year at an undisclosed valuation brought its total amount raised to more than $240 million and will be used to bankroll the expansion. Investors in that round included pension fund Aware Super and fund manager ECP Asset Management, both Australian, and Hong Kong’s Horizons Ventures, a VC firm cofounded by billionaire Solina Chau and backed by the territory’s richest man, Li Ka-shing.

In May, Harrison.ai received another big-name backer when Hong Kong-based conglomerate Jardine Matheson, controlled by the billionaire Keswick family, agreed to acquire I-Med Radiology Network, which holds a minority stake in Harrison.ai, in a deal that puts I-Med’s enterprise value at $2.4 billion. The Australian diagnostic imaging provider, the country’s largest by number of clinics, bought its Harrison.ai stake in 2021.

Harrison.ai generates revenue from the annual subscription fee paid by healthcare providers to access its platform, which is based on the expected volume of scans. When a subscribing radiologist opens an X-ray or CT scan using their usual software, Harrison.ai’s findings appear as an overlay that also prioritizes urgent cases.

So far, Harrison.ai has raised more than $240 million* from VC heavyweights, including billionaire Solina Chau’s Horizons Ventures.

In the year ended June 30, 2025, revenue from customer contracts jumped 54% from a year earlier to A$7.3 million ($5.1 million), according to a filing made by Harrison.ai to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. It swung to a net loss of A$118 million in the same period from a year-earlier net profit of A$4.4 million. The company says the filing only........

© Forbes