Tag: VC funding

VC AI Funding Plummets

Posted on by Brian Casey

If you thought venture capital funding of AI firms was lower last year, you weren’t wrong. A new report from market analysis firm Signify Research found that VC funding of radiology AI firms dropped by nearly half in 2024 compared to the year before. 

VC funding has become a closely watched barometer of the radiology AI segment’s overall health. 

  • As most AI developers haven’t generated significant cash flows from product revenues yet, VC money is the oxygen that keeps AI firms breathing. 

And there are signs that after peaking in 2021, that oxygen is coming into short supply. 

  • Signify’s report last year documented a 19% drop in VC AI funding in 2023, a development attributed to tighter access to capital due to high interest rates. 

Those trends continued into 2024, with the new Signify report finding …

  • Total VC funding was $335.5M, down 48% compared to $645.6M in 2023.
  • The number of funding rounds fell 35% (20 vs. 31), to the lowest level since 2015.
  • Average deal size fell 16% ($16.8M vs. $20.1M).
  • Cleerly raised the most in 2024 with $106M in funding, followed by Qure.ai with $65M (putting Qure into Signify’s elite “$100M Club”). 
  • Funding declines were even worse in the Asia-Pacific (-84%) and the Europe, Middle East, and Africa regions (-76%) compared to the peak in 2021. 

Signify analyst Umar Ahmed noted that 2025 got off to a strong start, with $100M in funding rounds announced in January.

  • This could either represent a rebound in investor confidence, or indicate that the AI funding cycle is getting longer as VC firms put developers under the microscope and demand better ROI for their investments. 

The Takeaway

So it’s agreed that 2024 was a wash for VC radiology AI funding – what about 2025? The year’s strong start appears to have petered out as we approach the spring quarter, and ongoing regulatory turbulence and economic uncertainty in the U.S. isn’t likely to help. Stay tuned. 

Imaging AI’s Big 2021

Posted on by Jake Fishman

Signify Research’s latest imaging AI VC funding report revealed an unexpected surge in 2021, along with major funding shifts that might explain why many of us didn’t see it coming. Here’s some of Signify’s big takeaways and here’s where to get the full report.

AI’s Path to $3.47B – Imaging AI startups have raised $3.47B in venture funding since 2015, helped by a record-high $815M in 2021 after several years of falling investments (vs. 2020’s $592M, 2019’s $450M, 2018’s $790M).

Big Get Bigger – That $3.47B funding total came from over 200 companies and 290 deals, although the 25 highest-funded companies were responsible for 80% of all capital raised. VCs  increased their focus on established AI companies in 2021, resulting in record-high late-stage funding (~$723.5M), record-low Pre-Seed/Seed funding (~$7M), and a major increase in average deal size (~$33M vs. ~$12M in 2020). 

Made in China – If you’re surprised that 2021 was a record AI funding year, that’s probably because it targeted Chinese companies (~$260M vs. US’ ~$150M), continuing a recent trend (China’s AI VC share was 45% in 2020, 26% in 2019). We’re also seeing major funding go to South Korea and Australia’s top startups, adding to APAC AI vendors’ funding leadership.

Health VC Context – Although imaging AI’s $815M 2021 funding total seems big for a category that’s figuring out its path towards full adoption, the amount VC firms are investing in other areas of healthcare makes it seem pretty reasonable. Our two previous Digital Health Wire issues featured seven digital health startup funding rounds with a total value of $267M (and that’s from just one week).

The Takeaway

Signify correctly points out that imaging AI funding remains strong despite a list of headwinds (COVID, regulatory hurdles, lacking reimbursements), while showing more signs of AI market maturation (larger funding rounds to fewer players) and suggesting that consolidation is on the way. Those factors will likely continue in 2022. However, more innovation is surely on the way too and quite a few regional AI powerhouses still haven’t expanded globally, suggesting that the next steps in AI’s evolution won’t be as straightforward as some might think.

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