AI-Stroke—a French medtech startup developing an ‘artificial intelligence (AI) neurologist’ to accelerate pre-computed tomography (CT) stroke triaging—has announced the completion of a US$4.6 million seed round led by Heka (Newfund VC) with participation from prominent angel investors and Bpifrance.
The funds will support AI-Stroke’s upcoming US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory pathway and multisite clinical studies across leading US stroke centres, a press release states.
Founded in 2022 by engineers, physicians, and former investors, AI-Stroke says it is working to “turn any smartphone or tablet device into a rapid stroke-assessment tool”. Its goal is as follows: paramedics or triage nurses record a 30-second video, and AI analyses facial symmetry, arm movement and speech to detect stroke signs within seconds before hospital CT imaging.
Built on “the world’s largest clinically annotated stroke video dataset”—including 20,000 videos and six million images—the company’s system has detected two times more ‘true’ stroke cases in a study with 2,000 emergency medical services (EMS) personnel. And, as it is fully compatible with US prehospital protocols like Face, arm, speech, time (FAST) and the Cincinnati prehospital stroke scale (CPSS), adoption will be “seamless”, AI-Stroke further claims.
The company also recently welcomed four world-renowned stroke experts to its medical advisory board: Gregory Albers (Stanford Stroke Center, Palo Alto, USA), co-founder of RapidAI; Gary Ford (Oxford University Hospitals, Oxford, UK), co-developer of the FAST test; Sean Savitz (University of Texas Health [UTHealth], Houston, USA); and Pankajavalli Ramakrishnan (Westchester Medical Center Health Network, New York, USA).
“This round strengthens our mission to equip every ambulance and emergency department with AI-driven neurological support,” said Cédric Javault, chief executive officer (CEO) of AI-Stroke. “By shortening the time to treatment, we can save more lives and improve outcomes worldwide.”
“With new funds and this distinguished advisory team on board, we’re ready to make AI-powered stroke detection a new standard of care,” commented Simon Jiafeng Li, the company’s chief business officer.
“AI-Stroke delivers a smart, easy-to-adopt solution to a critical yet underserved medical need—the prehospital triaging of stroke,” added Constant Beroulle, investor at Newfund Heka. “We’re proud to back the team as they scale internationally and bring their technology to the US market.”
