Aiforia secures €20M EIB financing for AI cancer diagnostics

Aiforia, a Helsinki-based life-science company providing deep learning AI solutions for pathology, has secured €20 million in venture debt financing from the European Investment Bank (EIB).  Supported under the European Commission’s InvestEU programme, the financing will accelerate Aiforia’s product development and boost its commercial operations. The financing is divided into three tranches, with a first tranche of €5 million. Drawing each tranche requires meeting the revenue and other interim targets set out in the financing agreement. Aiforia and the EIB have also agreed on a synthetic warrant arrangement, which does not cause immediate share dilution for Aiforia’s existing shareholders. “We are pleased that the negotiations have led to the signing of a binding financing agreement. The EIB venture debt financing strengthens Aiforia’s financial position and supports the implementation of our strategy. With this financing, we can accelerate product development, expand our commercial operations internationally, and advance our goal of improving patient care through AI-powered image analysis solutions,” said Jukka Tapaninen, CEO of Aiforia. Founded in 2013 as a spin-off from the University of Helsinki, Aiforia is a publicly traded company operating internationally with thousands of platform users across the globe. The company states that it delivers software solutions that elevate diagnostic capabilities in image analysis, enabling medical discoveries. It equips pathologists and scientists in preclinical and clinical labs with deep learning AI software for translating images into discoveries, decisions, and diagnoses. Aiforia claims that over 1 million images have been analysed and thousands of AI models have already been developed on the Aiforia platform for research use, and several diagnostic solutions have been deployed.  Selected Aiforia® Clinical AI models and the Aiforia® Clinical Suite Viewer are CE-IVD marked for diagnostic use in EU and EEA countries.  Aiforia is a publicly traded company operating internationally with thousands of platform users across the globe. Headquartered in Helsinki, the company also operates subsidiaries in the United States and France, and maintains a network of local representatives across Europe and North America. Aiforia’s team includes AI and software developers, pathologists, medical scientists, and a commercial team. “Our continent is working to remain competitive, and we need to support the companies that make that possible. From healthcare to digital life sciences, Europe must have the best technologies developed in-house to protect and care for its citizens. The solutions developed by Aiforia strengthen Europe’s competitiveness, while giving an innovative EU company the opportunity to succeed on the global stage,” said EIB Vice-President Karl Nehammer. The funding will support the further development of the company’s AI-powered platform, designed to support pathologists in digital tissue analysis (digital pathology), notably for the detection of tumours, as well as to boost its commercial operations.  The post Helsinki-based Aiforia secures €20 million EIB financing to advance AI-powered cancer diagnostics appeared first on EU-Startups.