Artificial intelligence medical imaging diagnostics startup Visla Labs announced today that it has raised $3 million in seed funding. The round was led by Lux Capital, with participation from others including Dick Costolo and Adam Bain, Twitter’s former CEO and COO, respectively.
The startup’s first software offering uses AI to increase the accuracy, speed and cost of radiology diagnoses. Founded in 2018 by Stanford, Apple and Twitter vets, the company said in a statement that early versions of its technology are currently employed by over 30 locations in the US and Asia.
Visla said that it plans to use these new funds to expand its team, scale product features and pursue regulatory approval.
Why it matters
Automated diagnoses from medical images across a number of specialties is a clear and growing use case for AI due to its potential to cut costs and reduce specialist demand. Today’s funding and the widespread early use of Visla’s radiology-focused tool suggest that interest in the technology is rising.
What’s the trend
The past few years have seen millions of investor dollars put toward AI imaging and radiology tools — Israel-based Zebra Medical Vision, for instance, brought in $30 million in June, while another Israel-based startup AiDoc received $7 million last year. Similarly, Qure.ai unveiled its own AI tool for identifying bleeds, fractures and other abnormalities in head CT scans in April.
On the record
"Visla's one click install puts power in hands of practitioners, empowering the practitioner not feeding the bureaucratic beast of status quo healthcare IT," Zavain Dar, principal at Lux Capital and now a member of Visla's board, said in a statement. "We've seen a number of companies applying computer vision to various diagnostic modalities in healthcare over the last four years. Simply put, what the Visla team has done in only eight months is light years beyond what any other team has yet to accomplish — crack the nut of technology, productization, and distribution in a very hairy industry."
