Despite plenty of challenges, imaging AI startups appear to be on pace for another solid funding year, helped by a handful of huge raises and a diverse mix of early-to-mid stage rounds.
So far in 2022 we’ve covered 18 AI funding events that totaled $615M, putting imaging AI startups roughly on pace for 2021’s record-high funding levels ($815M based on Signify’s analysis). Those funding rounds revealed a number of interesting trends:
- The Big Getting Bigger – $442M of this year’s funding (72% of total) came from just four later-stage rounds: Aidoc ($110M), Viz.ai ($100M), Cleerly ($192M), and Qure.ai ($40M), as VCs increasingly bet on AI’s biggest players.
- Rounding Up the Rest – The remaining 14 companies raised a combined $173M (28% of total), with an even mix of Seed/Pre-Seed (4 rounds, $10.5M), Series A (5, $74M), and Series B (5, $89M) rounds.
- VCs Heart Cardiovascular AI – Cardiovascular AI startups captured a disproportionate share of VC funding, as Cleerly ($192M) was joined by Elucid ($27M) and Us2.ai ($15M). Considering that Circle CVI was recently acquired for $213M and HeartFlow has raised over $577M, cardiac AI startups seem to have become imaging AI’s valuation leaders (at least alongside diversified and care coordination AI vendors).
- No H2 Drop-Off (yet) – The funding breakdown between Q1 (6 rounds, $63.5M), Q2 (7, $289M), and Q3 (5, $263M) doesn’t suggest that we’re in the middle of a second-half slowdown… even though we probably are.
The Takeaway
Despite widespread AI consolidation chatter in Q1 and the emergence of economic headwinds by Q2, imaging AI startups are on pace for yet another massive funding year. These numbers don’t reveal how many otherwise-solid AI startups are struggling to secure their next funding round, and they don’t guarantee that funding will also be strong in 2023, but they do suggest that 2022’s AI funding won’t be nearly as bleak as some naysayers warned.
