AI funding Archives - The Imaging Wire

After a long slide, venture capital funding for medical imaging AI companies bounced back in 2025. That’s according to the latest report from market intelligence firm Signify Research.

VC funding of AI startups has declined steadily since 2020, when cheap money fueled by low pandemic-era interest rates spurred a boom in both the total dollar value of investments as well as the number of funding rounds getting done.

Previous Signify reports documented the trend well, with the number of funding rounds peaking at nearly 80 in 2020 and total funding crossing the $1B mark in 2021. But by 2024, funding rounds had fallen by 64% and their dollar value by 70%.

But the numbers for 2025 show a turnaround starting, at least with respect to dollar value…

Total funding more than doubled compared to the year before ($709M vs. $336M).
While the number of funding rounds fell 17% (19 vs. 23).
But the size of the average funding round grew 112% ($39M vs. $19M).

In analyzing the numbers, Signify found that while funding momentum is coming back, investors are being more selective.

Capital is concentrating in companies that have a clear enterprise fit, a strong integration pathway, and the ability to operate within platform and imaging IT ecosystems.

Funding rounds of note in 2025 included…

Aidoc’s haul of $150M.
An Ultromics funding that put the company in Signify’s coveted $100M club.
Cerebriu gaining over $10M in a Series A round.
a2z pulling in $4.5M in seed funding for its multi-triage platform.

The report addresses turbulence in the AI platform sector, which saw significant disruption in 2025 after Bayer’s withdrawal from the market.

Platform companies will need to move beyond AI orchestration and show they can actively improve radiology workflows and deliver better clinical decisions and measurable impact.

The Takeaway

The 2025 bounceback in VC funding for AI firms is welcome news that the correction that followed the sugar high of 2020/2021 may have worked its way through the system. AI investments in 2026 are likely to be smarter and more focused, and in companies that have demonstrated their value in helping radiologists work more efficiently.

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.

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