Elucid collects $80M for AI-powered mapping of blocked arteries

The cardiovascular imaging company Elucid has made it clear they mean to deliver on their promise of artificial intelligence-powered exams to chart the insides of blocked arteries. And now they’ve raised $80 million to do so.

Financially speaking, the startup has kept up its momentum since last year’s venture capital fundraising—with a $27 million series B in June 2022, which just about tripled its $8 million round from the year before. The most recent series C continues that trajectory, for a total of $121 million since Elucid’s founding.

With green lights in the U.S. and Europe, the company’s diagnostic software takes CT angiography scan data and uses AI algorithms to build 3D models of the build-ups of plaque within the blood vessels—giving clinicians a much more detailed view into the key drivers of strokes and heart attacks, by simulating what a pathologist might see under a microscope with a physical sample.

This can also include objective analyses of the make-up and stability of the arterial plaque itself, not just its geometry, to help predict the chances it may break apart and cut off blood flow down the line to the brain, heart or other organs of the body.

Elucid also said that it is developing its PlaqueIQ software toward a new indication, for calculating fractional flow reserve from CT scans—an analysis of the flow of oxygenated blood through the various branches of the cardiac muscle’s coronary arteries.

The company’s series C funding round was the first major public outing by Elevage Medical Technologies, a medtech-focused fund launched this past May with a $300 million investment from Patient Square Capital. 

Elevage led the round with additional backing from Elucid’s previous investors, which have included Biovision Ventures, IAG Capital, Bold Brain Ventures, BlueStone Venture Partners and MedTex Ventures.

Elevage’s CEO, Evan Melrose, and senior advisor Kelly Huang joined the company’s board of directors as part of the financing.