Nexture: The Kiwi AI Startup Revolutionising Gastrointestinal Healthcare
When Wei Sun fell in love with New Zealand while on holiday in 2016, little did he know that he would be back nearly a decade later, launching a healthcare technology startup in Christchurch to build an affordable, effective AI gastrointestinal (GI) health management platform.
Sun – a seasoned entrepreneur with a 25-year track record in healthcare technology, AI, and robotics – is the founder of Nexture.
Their flagship product, TheraSeus, is a multi-device compatible AI platform that reads and analyses capsule endoscopy images – tiny pill-sized cameras swallowed by patients that take tens of thousands of pictures of the gastrointestinal tract. These cameras produce upwards of 50,000 images per case, requiring exhaustive manual review by physicians. A typical review can take up to an hour, a significant portion of which is spent scrolling through normal images.
Nexture’s TheraSeus optimises this workflow by intelligently filtering out redundant images and highlighting areas of clinical interest. This allows physicians to concentrate their expertise on analysing suspicious lesions, aiming to enhance diagnostic accuracy and confidence while streamlining the review process. And it does so at a radically lower cost: just $30 per report, compared to competing solutions priced at over $50,000 with hefty monthly subscriptions.
“TheraSeus filters out the noise and lets doctors focus on what matters,” Sun explains. “This is about giving time back to physicians – and catching diseases early, when we can still do something about them.”
The global market for capsule endoscopy is projected to reach $8.2 billion by 2028, but AI penetration remains under 5%. That’s not for lack of demand, but because most AI platforms are expensive, hardware-dependent, and closed to integration.
Nexture flips that model on its head. TheraSeus is hardware-agnostic, meaning it can run on over 100,000 existing capsule endoscopy systems already deployed worldwide. Instead of requiring new machines, it unlocks value from what hospitals already have.
“Some companies are busy building castles,” Sun says. “We’re building roads that connect everyone.”
The cost savings and compatibility mean hospitals can start using the software immediately – no infrastructure overhaul and no budget approval delays.
From Burnout to Breakthrough
Sun’s mission is deeply personal. He speaks with conviction about the pressures physicians face – spending hours per day reviewing medical images, with minimal support. It’s not just inefficient; it’s dangerous.
Late diagnosis remains a critical challenge in gastrointestinal health. Gastric cancer, for instance, is often discovered at an advanced stage because early-stage symptoms can be subtle or non-existent. Furthermore, diagnosing diseases in the small bowel, which is difficult to reach with traditional endoscopy, often involves significant delays. Sun’s goal is to provide a more accessible and effective diagnostic tool to help address these challenges and improve early detection rates.
For gastric cancer, the five-year relative survival rate for a localised diagnosis is approximately 75%. However, if the cancer has spread to distant parts of the body (Stage IV), that rate plummets to just 7%. This starkly illustrates the life-saving importance of accessible and effective early screening. TheraSeus directly addresses this making it not only fast but highly accurate.
It’s built on a high-quality, curated dataset, developed in close collaboration with clinical specialists to ensure every image is accurately annotated. This focus on data quality and diversity, which is projected to exceed 50 million images within the first year, is the foundation for building a reliable and robust algorithm. And without the need for cloud uploads – a crucial feature for hospitals wary of patient data risks.
Making Health Equitable, One Capsule at a Time
Born in Xi’an at the beginning of China’s “one child” policy, Sun was influenced early on by his mother, a doctor, and his father, a university lecturer. After university, Sun worked in hospitals, but it wasn’t long before he discovered another passion.
“When I was in medical school, I became known in the hospital – not because I was the best doctor, but because I could fix everyone’s computer,” Sun recalls.
“In the mid-90s, access to the internet in China was still a rarity. But I was curious. I taught myself, built websites, and helped my professors set up systems. That’s when I realised my passion wasn’t just medicine – it was solving medical problems with technology. That idea never left me.”
That spark eventually led him to build several tech startups across China’s early web and health-tech sectors. One of the ventures he worked on became one of the top 10 healthcare websites in China, eventually acquired by a public company.
But with Nexture, Sun’s commitment to accessibility is more than a business strategy. He suffered from Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) as a child and knows the burden of GI symptoms firsthand.
“After my first business sold, I started looking into capsule cameras, the kind that can take pictures inside the digestive system. I wondered if we could build something better, something smaller, smarter. That was the beginning. I know firsthand how hard it is for people to live with these conditions, and how expensive or inaccessible the diagnostics can be. I wanted to change that.”
Ultimately Sun’s goal is to enable early and affordable GI screening and diagnosis for everyone. TheraSeus has been designed to work in remote locations with limited medical staff.
“I saw the gap. In small towns, people don’t have specialist GI doctors. But they still need help,” Sun explains.
“I thought – what if we could create a more accessible pathway? A patient, guided by their local GP or a practice nurse, could complete the necessary preparation and swallow the capsule. Our AI platform would then conduct a preliminary analysis to generate a structured report, which is then sent to a specialist for final review and diagnosis.
“This AI-assisted workflow could significantly reduce travel and wait times, bringing expert care to everyone, regardless of location. That’s the kind of system I want to build. One that doesn’t care if you live in Auckland or in Bluff – or in Beijing. Everyone deserves access.”
Building from New Zealand, for the World
Nexture isn’t building in isolation. It has earned backing from Christchurch-based startup accelerator Ministry of Awesome, Microsoft for Startups, Google for Startups and NVIDIA Inception. With support from these programs, the team has built an enterprise-grade platform and already validated it in real-world clinical settings.
Their business model is as agile as their software: a usage-based SaaS model (“software as a service”) at $20–$30 per report, IP licensing for hardware vendors, and data licensing for research institutions. Margins are enviable, with 85–95% gross profits across revenue streams.
The team is currently focused on algorithm and model optimisation, alongside regulatory preparations in New Zealand, Australia, and the U.S.
At its core, Sun sees TheraSeus as the start of something larger. Sun envisions capsule technology capable not only of imaging, but also sampling, treatment delivery, and even in-situ diagnostics. His long-term goal? To position Nexture as the platform powering the future of minimally invasive GI medicine.
“I think in the future, capsule endoscopy will not just be for taking pictures – it will take samples, deliver drugs, and maybe become the final solution for GI healthcare,” he says. “And we want to be part of that transformation.”
From the halls of Chinese hospitals to the clinics of New Zealand, Wei Sun is creating not just a product, but a vision for healthcare that’s equitable, intelligent, and built to serve everyone.
Interview and feature by Richard Liew.
