# BrainScanology

A novel shape analysis software revolutionizing STEM discoveries and STEM education.

## Elevator pitch
Create a shape-analysis software allowing surgeons/radiologists to accurately predict disease states, response to therapy, and which surgical procedure to use for best results. The data we produce helps surgeons/radiologists/psychiatrists be objective and accurate, even when they feel exhausted at the end of the day.

- Canonical URL: https://wefunder.com/brainscanology
- Entity ID: wefunder:company:67920
- Last updated: 2026-06-22T05:03:12Z
- Generated at: 2026-06-22T20:11:06Z

## Quick facts
- Revenue in 2023 was $30,000. Revenue in 2024 is on track to be over $60,000.
- University STEM Departments will purchase our software for students & researchers (not guaranteed).
- Private high schools around the world will purchase our STEM workshops & software (not guaranteed).
- Thousands of scientific discoveries will be made because of our software in the next 10 years.
- We will revolutionize the measurement of cell shapes for the drug discovery industry.
- Our algorithm works on images of your hands/feet/eyes taken from a smartphone.
- Our software will be in high demand for hospitals (not guaranteed). Early detection saves lives.

## Active fundraises
- wefunder:fundraise:68584: 4(a)(6) successful (USD)
- wefunder:fundraise:68585: 4(a)(6) successful (USD)
- wefunder:fundraise:37368: 4(a)(6) successful (USD)

## Story
The idea stared in 2018 when Dr. Dave Nguyen, PhD, invented a computational algorithm to measure the complex shapes of colon polyps. His favorite high school science teacher, Mr. Nichols, had just died of colon cancer, so Dr. Nguyen invented a method for classify complex shapes in biology to commemorate him. He named the method Linearized Compressed Polar Coordinate (LCPC) Transform.We realized this worked on complicated shapes in STEM that no other method could measure.In 2019, Dr. Nguyen participated in the QBI Hackathon at the University of California-San Francisco. He was able to extract quantitatively different signatures of brain MRIs of patients with ADHD compared to their non-affected counterparts. This began our exploration of how the LCPC Transform can revolutionize STEM research in the area of shape analysis. The Problems Facing Biotech and Pharma Research- No way to produce clean data when quantifying complex shapes of cells in 2D culture or 3D organoids in a dish.- No way to produce clean data when measuring the irregular shapes of cells in histology images and blood smear images.- Noisy data from measuring area, volume, and signal intensity results in false discoveries or no discoveries. The Problems Facing STEM Education Programs- Lack of on-demand and live training programs teaching how to do image analysis for STEM research, even though so much of STEM relies on analyzing images. - No easy-to-use software allowing high school and college students to contribute to science by making discoveries based on publicly available STEM image archives or smartphone images.- For students who don't know how to do computer programming -- or who don't like to code -- there is no software allowing them to easily express their scientific creativity in STEM research. BrainScanology's Shape Genie software unlocks their creativity.How Does BrainScanology Solve These Problems?We developed a web-based software (a.k.a. a SaaS software) called Shape Genie. This software is easy-to-use because it does not require knowledge of computer programming. We offer free, long-term accounts so that anyone can learn to use Shape Genie.We created a workshop on "Fundamentals of Image Analysis" for STEM research, in which we teach how to use Shape Genie and two other popular software. We created a purely on-demand version of our workshop AND a live version in which a mentor teaches students how to apply Shape Genie to a project of their choice. We offer consulting services in which we do shape analysis and data analysis for academic labs and biotech companies. Who Will Benefit?- Biotech and pharma companies that are unable to measure subtle, but important phenotypes in cells, tissues, and organs.- University STEM departments that want to equip their students with cutting-edge research tools for the future.- Researchers who need to make sense of phenotypic data, or who want to integrate phenotypic data with genomic/transcriptomic data. - Private high schools who want their STEM students to be career ready with cutting-edge skills.How Will We Make Money?- We will continue to partner with more private high school education institutions to offer our workshops and software in a profit-sharing model. - We will sell research consulting services to academic labs and biotech companies. - Our shape-analysis software, called ShapeGenie, will be offered as a monthly subscription SaaS product. We will have three tiers of subscription pricing to accommodate subscribers ranging from individuals to hospitals to pharma corporations. When used for purely research purposes, it does not require FDA approval before we sell it.  - We will also offer consulting services alongside access to ShapeGenie. Companies will hire us to extract shape features and build predictive machine learning models for their research question (like "Why doesn't this group of patients respond to our drug?").- Regarding our diagnostic machine learnings models, such as for Alzheimer's Disease: after FDA approval we will sell our services at a discount to health providers (our customers), such as Kaiser and Anthem Blue Cross / Shield. They sell our services at a marked-up price to their patients (the end-users). The Deeper Story of BrainScanologyIn 2013, one of Dr. Nguyen's good friends from college took his own life because of bipolar disorder. His name was Thuan Trinh. At Thuan's funeral, Dr. Nguyen promised that he would do something about bipolar disorder one day. At the time, Dr. Nguyen was studying cancer biology, so he didn't know what that promise would even look like. However, in 2018 when the LCPC Transform was created -- six years after wandering away from cancer biology and into computational biology -- and Dr. Nguyen realized exactly what his promise to Thuan would be like: BrainScanology ...

## FAQ
1. **Have you submitted any patent applications yet? Also, given your academic affiliation, what interest does Berkeley have in the IP?**
   - Hi Laurel. We will be submitting patents in January 2021! Berkeley has no ownership of IP because I developed this technology after any formal employment at the university. My affiliation is as an alumnus. Thanks for asking! Best, Dave
2. **Hello Dave, Do you plan to have your algorithm integrated with a DICOM reader or would this be a stand alone suite of tools for analysis by a doctor? Does this require any FDA approvals for use? How do you plan to roll out the software, one time purchase or would it be a subsc...**
   - Hi Benjamin,Re: DICOM: We will be a stand-alone analysis where health providers can upload patient data into an online portal for us to download. Re: FDA approval: In the long run, yes, but as with any new diagnostic technology we just need to make clear to our customers, through the standard disclaimers, that our technology is not FDA approved. We will seek FDA approval towards the end of 2021. Re: software rollout: We will have a subscription model. We will receive our 250 initial...
3. **Hi there! Do you plan to further extend the list of illnesses the algorithm can scan after your launch your current version?**
   - Hi, Evgeny. Yes, we plan to work on predicting bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, Autism, and ADHD. In the next year or two, the primary focus will be on bipolar disorder, Schizophrenia, and Alzheimer's. Best, Dave
4. **You include free 'risk analyses' in your perks. What are the details related to completing an analyses? Where do you go, does it including paying for an MRI or EEG, etc.? Thank you.**
   - MRI’s can be performed at any outpatient imaging center or hospital. Once you have the MRI result, we can send you or your clinic a website to upload the MRI. We then download your MRI from this portal and perform an analysis. The resulting risk score report and relevant resources and information will be sent to you as a pamphlet. However, since we have not received FDA approval in the USA, we cannot send anyone in the USA an analysis. We can only send our analysis to people who live in Latin...
5. **Hi, have you filed the first patent?**
   - Hi T Baillie, Yes, we have filed for a provisional patent.

## Team
- Dave Nguyen (Co-Founder & CEO)
- William Jagust (Advisor)
- Amarpreet Singh (Advisor)

## Recent posts
- Dave was Nominated (but not elected...) for a National Science Award (2024-10-02T01:48:43Z)
- Shape Genie Detects The Presence of Malaria in Red Blood Cells Without Using Chemical Stains (2024-09-17T15:03:28Z)
- Shape Genie can measure cells in PAP smears better than ever before. (2024-09-09T21:45:30Z)
- Shape Genie Can Measure the Shape of Brains on a Chip Better Than Anything Else (2024-09-05T15:21:03Z)
- Evidence of a new subtype of glaucoma in women over age 40+ (2024-08-21T15:54:55Z)
- BrainScanology's Technology Reveals a Continuum of Eye Shapes Ranging from Healthy Patients to Glaucoma Patients (2024-08-14T03:35:07Z)
- CDT Open works as predicted on actual clock drawings from NHATS Study Data (2024-05-10T06:34:36Z)
- Limited time 50% Off on BrainScanology's "Image Analysis Workshop" (2023-09-05T17:45:28Z)
- BrainScanology interviewed on "Genomics in the Cloud" (2023-08-31T20:39:56Z)
- Our App Detects Early Signs of Dementia (2023-06-16T20:29:11Z)
- David Nguyen, PhD will be training the public about how to reduce racial bias in medical A.I. (2022-12-05T19:51:56Z)
- BrainScanology Won 1st Place at the Spark Competition (2022-11-17T19:36:29Z)
- Startup Health Magazine features BrainScanology! (2022-11-12T07:08:26Z)
- Top 10 Finalist for Spark Venture Competition! (2022-11-02T00:22:29Z)
- PDF of Dave's "Top 50 CEOs" Interview (2022-09-15T15:36:40Z)

## Q&A
- Q: I am the president of the Hong Kong association of psychology. I am also wondering if we can bring these stuff to Hong Kong and China as well on top of being an investor. Can people in my part of the world benefit this At this point since it’s not FDA approved yet (meaning doesn’t necessarily require hospital visit nor medical doctor to do the scan?)
  - A: Hi Dr. Low, Thank you for your interest in BrainScanology's software! The software, ShapeGenie, will launch in January of 2023 for GLOBAL subscription. If scientists and clinicians use it for research purposes only (not to make a diagnostic decision for a patient), then it does NOT need FDA approval. My email is dave@brainscanology.com (I'm the CEO and inventor). Feel free to have your colleagues reach out to me about advice on how to best apply ShapeGenie to their research topic. Please see our use-cases page for examples of what ShapeGenie can do that traditional measures of shape cannot even fathom. https://www.brainscanology.com/usecases Best, Dave
- Q: Repost: What's the ultimate exit strategy and/or timeline to go public? Are your planning to be acquired?
  - A: Yes, our ultimate exit strategy is acquisition in the next 4 years. Our hope is to be acquired by the market share leaders in MRI machine manufacturing, such as GE, Phillips, and Siemens. BrainScanology’s value proposition and target market are aligned with similar companies historically acquired by these companies.
- Q: Hi, have you filed the first patent?
  - A: Hi T Baillie, Yes, we have filed for a provisional patent.
- Q: You include free 'risk analyses' in your perks. What are the details related to completing an analyses? Where do you go, does it including paying for an MRI or EEG, etc.? Thank you.
  - A: MRI’s can be performed at any outpatient imaging center or hospital. Once you have the MRI result, we can send you or your clinic a website to upload the MRI. We then download your MRI from this portal and perform an analysis. The resulting risk score report and relevant resources and information will be sent to you as a pamphlet. However, since we have not received FDA approval in the USA, we cannot send anyone in the USA an analysis. We can only send our analysis to people who live in Latin America at this time.
- Q: I invested like 3 years ago on wefuder why is showing up as a failure for some reason when yall are raising money lol as of Feb 2025
- Q: This project just showed up on in my portfolio as a FAILURE. Is this true?? Has it failed??
- Q: Why are you raising again? Why hasn't the valuation changed since last year? Are the funds from the last raise depleted? What changes or progress has occurred since the last raise and why hasn't the progress been substantial enough to cause even the slightest say 5% increase in valuation?
- Q: We want to know what you see your valuation will look like in 3 years also the income and balance statements Not to say much, I think we are very much interested in this project but then we are not opting for the crowdfunding route. We were wondering if you have provisions to accept alternative financing which should save time of WAITING SO LONG for your target to be met. With that we can cover over 50% of your target raise. Kindly reach out to me at thomas@700capital.se so we discuss further.
- Q: I cannot find the valuation cap, which is a critical item in making an investment decision. Can you provide this?
  - A: Hi Brian, The cap is $20M. It's in the info, but hard to find because there is so much text. Best, Dave
- Q: I haven’t heard any updates. How well is brainscanlogy doing? This is new to me and I wonder how things work?
  - A: Hi Jacky, We send quarterly email updates to our investors. Here is the most recent one. Best, Dave Q2 2022 Highlights We have early adopters who will become paying customers in a few months. More rolling in each week (see Customer Traction section). The MVP of Our SaaS Software is on track for release in January (see Software Development section). The National Science Foundation (NSF) invited us to submit a full proposal for a Phase 1 SBIR grant for $250K of non-dilutive funding in the area of Artificial Intelligence for diagnosing Alzheimer's Disease. We were accepted into the NewChip Accelerator and the StartupHealth Network (see Funding section). We developed use-case videos for measuring shapes of cells in 2D and 3D culture, which will be of tremendous benefit to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries (see R&D section). We submitted provisional patent applications of our algorithm for shape analysis of the following industries, so that we can partner with software distributors that will pay us royalties (see R&D section). Electronic materials (lithium-ion batteries, microchips, etc.) Microstructure of metallic and ceramic alloys (metallography, etc.) Liquid-solid interactions, liquid-liquid interactions (water proofing, new chemical mixtures, etc). We were selected and approved for an episode of NewsWatchTV, which airs on AMC to 95 million viewers! (see Marketing section) ======================== Customer Traction Early Adopters & Partners on SBIR Grants from the US Government Prof. Brian Feeley, MD, Chief of Sports Medicine; and Prof. Drew Lansdown, MD, Assistant Professor – University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Prof. Jennifer Rosenbluth, PhD in the Dept. of Medicine – University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Early Adopters Protein Fluidics, Inc. Prof. Rishi Raj, PhD in the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering – Indian Institute of Technology, Patna (IIT-Patna) Pending: A instrumentation company in the area of surface chemistry is considering becoming a distributor of our software, in their industry, that pays us royalties. ======================== Funding The National Science Foundation (NSF) invited us to submit a full proposal for a Phase 1 SBIR grant in the area of Artificial Intelligence for diagnosing Alzheimer's Disease. Accepted into NewChip Accelerator (warrant to co-invest up to $250K in future rounds) Accepted into StartupHealth Network (warrant to co-invest up to $200K in future rounds) A verbal agreement from Alumni Ventures to co-invest up to $200K pending the attainment of a lead investor. ======================== Software Development We completed the UI/UX design of our SaaS MVP We also completed the roadmap of the first phase of our Saas MVP We are currently working on building the development, staging, and production environment of our SaaS platform We also start documenting and creating processes and procedures for DevSecOps to ensure PCI and HIPAA compliance. ======================== R&D Biomedical Science - Use Case Videos Video [11 min]: LCPC Transform Measures Shape Distinctly From Area in 2D Cell Culture https://youtu.be/nlrx9sOPpFY Slides from video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wwKZf-i28HQw8q3IEmCS65ED3ADz_iMb/view?usp=sharing -- Video [13 min]: LCPC Shape Analysis on 3D Organoids & Microvilli https://youtu.be/j6_r2b6qV8c Slides from video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kxqy7QmNZbSWdPn-0Q4Z-wXcP8mkp_RG/view?usp=sharing -- Video [12 min]: LCPC Shape Analysis of Hill-Sachs Lesions of the Human Shoulder https://youtu.be/IqFZHcrDVbc Slides from video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WgK5qQt6mVD5MPGljF-2m3o0JGfZn0O7/view?usp=sharing – Video [11 min]: LCPC Transform Measures Sickle Cell Shapes in Ways that Area Cannot https://youtu.be/l8lhBqsSQss Slides from video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JGQ3eAJYX4t72H0iSaivq9zE8N4rmEVc/view?usp=sharing —-------------------------------------------- Materials Science & Engineering - Use Case Videos -- Video [16 min]: LCPC Shape Analysis of Lithium-Ion Batteries and Electronics https://youtu.be/rcVH5E79XnQ Slides from video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QgxCVLWadSepKOiQrpadU6zep5YJSHu2/view?usp=sharing -- Video [18 min]: LCPC Transform on Drop Shape Analysis (Without Contact Angles) https://youtu.be/iZgvvVHbhFU Slides from video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LOdcjCZ9kUndNVmPbRZ14UowpaJDnhZd/view?usp=sharing -- Video [8 min]: LCPC Shape Analysis of Titanium Crystals https://youtu.be/uwDjSxegADc Slides from video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ktVd6p26xlk44crHz4mQJ8G2D_0lhXmU/view?usp=sharing — Video [8 min]: LCPC Transform Analysis on Particle Shapes (Rocks, Crystals, Cells) https://youtu.be/rKCgn_BUVvM Slides from the video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/14AFcOyPXqVUH3qq6xQibMQ1BmbDAjRfx/view?usp=sharing ======================== Marketing We are proud to announce that BrainScanology has been chosen to be on NewsWatch, airing on AMC to over 95 million households in more than 200 markets. Through this campaign, BrainScanology will be given a dedicated social media campaign targeting the NewsWatch/AMC community of 200,000+ followers. Our video will be distributed to major news sites such as Bloomberg, Reuters, CNBC, The Associated Press, Wired, and others. This opportunity allows BrainScanology to target specific demographics and audiences to further boost the success of our marketing campaign, bringing more awareness to our overall efforts as well as our product offering.
- Q: I originally invested $100.00 but reconfirmed 7 times because it kept saying I had not confirmed and finally it said I invested $700.00. It is now saying I invested $100.00 but I have not received the $600.00 plus fees.please return money ASAP as it has been more than 2 months now.thank you enos smith
- Q: How’s this compared to Amen Clinic’s spect scan of the brain? How would you deal with this competition ?
  - A: Hi Adrian. Great question! SPECT scans cost 2-3x more than MRIs and require an injection of radioactive isotopes into the patient. SPECT scans measure the flow of blood in the brain, but says little about the structure of the brain. Both SPECT and MRI are useful in their own ways, but MRIs are more efficient. Our algorithm can analyze the shape of SPECT signals in the brain (which is something we will do in the future), but SPECT scans cannot measure shapes of brain folds like our technology does. Our method can do more! Best, Dave
- Q: Any plans to raise the maximum for this campaign? $107k limit is rather low, given the $20m valuation.
  - A: We have raised our funding maximum to $1.07M and our campaign deadline is now the end of August 30th, 2021. Our goal has become $500,000.00.
- Q: Hello, do you have any financial projections, or cash flow estimates for the next 5 years? How do you plan to monetize this?
  - A: Hi Daniel! On September 1st, we will launch a pre-order campaign selling limited lifetime subscriptions for $500(USD)/person in Chile. The first 5,000 subscribers will get annual analysis for Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, and Alzheimer's Disease during their lifetime. 5,000x$500=$2.5M. We are not yet FDA approved in the USA, so we cannot take pre-orders in America. However, Latin America and some countries in Africa have lax policies about taking pre-orders. Let me know if you have any more questions! Best, Dave
- Q: Hello, does this algorithm have value in brain injury as well?
  - A: Traumatic brain injury increases your risk of dementia later in life. Thus, in addition to having the potential to better understand what a certain degree of traumatic brain injury will mean for a person 10 years later, our software can also track this person's risk for dementia for the rest of their life. Regarding what I said above about "traumatic brain injury will mean for a person 10 years later," we are not focusing on brain injuries at this time.