PulseFlow Technologies Secures Tens of Millions in A+ Financing Led by Sinopharm Capital to Advance AI-Powered Cardiovascular Diagnostics

Recently, VCBeat learned that ArteryFlow Technology, a leader in intelligent diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, has introduced Sinopharm Capital as a strategic investor and completed an A+ round of financing worth tens of millions of yuan. The investment was made by the Sinopharm Medical Device Fund under Sinopharm Capital, with Probe Capital serving as the exclusive financial advisor. Dr. Xiang Jianping, Founder and CEO of ArteryFlow Technology, stated that the funds from this round will be used to further expand the team, conduct clinical trials for the AccuFFR product series, handle registration applications, and carry out market promotion.

As an innovative technology company that leverages medical big data, computational simulation technologies, and artificial intelligence algorithms to provide precise and personalized diagnosis and treatment for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, ArteryFlow Technology enjoyed a series of notable achievements in the second half of 2019. In addition to this year-end funding round, the company completed a tens-of-millions RMB Series A financing backed by Chongqing Dianshi Chuangjian Fund in June 2019. Just six months later, it once again garnered favor from Sinopharm Capital, underscoring strong investor confidence in ArteryFlow Technology’s platform capabilities and strategic business direction.

In addition to widespread recognition in the capital market, ArteryFlow Technology’s innovative products have also gained global industry acclaim. The 2019 Innovation in Cardiovascular Interventions (ICI) Conference was held in Tel Aviv, Israel, from December 8 to 10. During the joint ICI-CCI 2019 forum, AccuFFR, an innovative non-invasive functional assessment system for cardiovascular diseases developed by ArteryFlow Technology, stood out among numerous Chinese-Israeli projects. It received unanimous praise from a global panel of experts and was awarded the Best Innovation Award in the cardiovascular field for the year. The ICI-CCI is an internationally influential forum co-established through collaboration between China and Israel. Chaim Lotan, Chairman of the ICI Conference, Academician Junbo Ge, and multiple experts from both countries attended the event in full and served as judges, while several innovative projects from China and Israel were presented.

At the ICI-CCI Joint Forum, AccuFFR Won the 2019 Best Innovation Award in the Cardiovascular Field

Dr. Xiang Jianping, Founder and CEO of ArteryFlow Technology (third from left), with ICI Conference Chair Professor Chaim Lotan (second from left), Academician Ge Junbo (first from left), and Professor Yuval Binur (first from right)

AccuFFR is a proprietary functional assessment solution for coronary stenosis developed by ArteryFlow Technology, comprising three products designed for three distinct application scenarios:AccuFFRct based on coronary CTA, AccuFFRangio based on coronary angiography, and AccuFFRivus based on intravascular ultrasound (IVUS).Although the concept of FFRct has gradually gained clinical acceptance, current technologies are too time-consuming, with comparable U.S. products requiring 4–5 hours. ArteryFlow Technology has leveraged deep learning to drive innovation, significantly improving computational efficiency.

For instance, left ventricular reconstruction is required during the calculation of FFRct. While traditional methods take approximately 30 minutes, ArteryFlow Technology’s proprietary LV-Net deep learning neural network reduces the reconstruction time to just 28 seconds, with an accuracy rate of 95%. The efficiency of coronary artery reconstruction can also be significantly improved.

AccuFFRivus is a world-first technology pioneered by ArteryFlow Technology that integrates angiography with intravascular ultrasound (IVUS). This innovation enables simultaneous functional assessment of fractional flow reserve (FFR) during a single IVUS measurement, thereby eliminating the need for separate, costly consumables associated with both IVUS and FFR guidewires. In IVUS reconstruction, ArteryFlow Technology employs its proprietary deep learning algorithm, IVUS-Net, which has achieved an accuracy rate of 96%.

Dr. Xiang Jianping, the company’s founder, attributed the completion of two financing rounds each exceeding RMB 10 million within six months to three main factors:

I. Professional Technical Team: ArteryFlow Technology boasts a team with extensive experience in computational simulation, artificial intelligence, and medical imaging. The team possesses profound technical expertise and has published hundreds of academic papers in the scholarly community. Many team members are interdisciplinary talents who not only master advanced technologies but also have a deep understanding of clinical practice, which is crucial for successful clinical applications.

II. In-Depth Clinical Collaboration: The ArteryFlow team has decades of experience in deep collaboration with clinicians both domestically and internationally, currently maintaining strong partnerships with over a hundred cardiovascular and cerebrovascular hospitals worldwide. It collaborates closely with the Global Vascular Institute (GVI) Center in Buffalo, USA, a world-renowned intervention center. In China, ArteryFlow Technology has established in-depth collaborations with top-tier cerebrovascular disease hospitals such as Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Huashan Hospital, and Changhai Hospital; with leading cardiovascular disease institutions including the team led by President Wang Jian’an at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Zhongshan Hospital, and Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital; as well as with the CTO Veteran Team and the CCI Cardiovascular Innovation Center led by Academician Ge Junbo. Over the past year, ArteryFlow Technology has co-completed and published more than 20 academic papers on cardiovascular and cerebrovascular topics in collaboration with these major hospitals.

3. Massive Medical Data: Medical data serves as the foundation for deep learning in medicine. Through in-depth collaborations with over one hundred hospitals, ArteryFlow Technology has accumulated extensive clinical and imaging data, ensuring the training and validation of deep learning models.

In addition, according to VCBeat, ArteryFlow Technology’s products in the field of cerebrovascular diseases are also at a globally leading level and have received widespread industry recognition, alongside its well-acknowledged cardiovascular offerings.

Cardiovascular diseases have the highest mortality rate among all disease categories. The high incidence of cardiovascular diseases is attributed to major risk factors such as hypertension, smoking, dyslipidemia, diabetes, and psychosocial factors, which are difficult to control. For instance, helping individuals quit smoking or lose weight to reduce the risk of hypertension poses significant challenges. Furthermore, the prevalence of these risk factors increases with age, leading to a higher prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, particularly among adults aged 65 years and older. According to data from the Report on Cardiovascular Diseases in China 2018, the prevalence of hypertension exceeds 50% in this population.

The vast patient population gives rise to a substantial disease burden and a large cardiovascular disease market. The 2019 Lancet publication of the 2017 China Disease Burden Study results showed that stroke and ischemic heart disease were the two conditions with the highest burden, while lung cancer ranked fourth among all cancers in terms of disease burden.

The immense market and the needs of both doctors and patients are driving technology to empower the cardiovascular industry. In November, VCBeat and Alibaba Cloud Tianchi jointly released the "Artificial Intelligence Empowering Cardiovascular Report." Data shows that there are currently more than 10 innovative companies leveraging technologies such as artificial intelligence and hemodynamics to empower the cerebrovascular and cardiovascular industries. Among these, AI is most frequently applied in coronary CTA and non-invasive FFR. The commercial value of non-invasive FFR measurement has already been validated by the US company HeartFlow (valued at over $1.5 billion), while no dominant player has yet emerged in China, indicating significant potential for future growth.

FFR is the fractional flow reserve, defined as the ratio of maximal blood flow distal to a coronary stenosis to the theoretical maximal blood flow in the absence of such stenosis. FFR serves as an indicator of myocardial oxygen supply-demand balance and can be measured invasively in clinical practice using a pressure guidewire.

However, conventional FFR measurement requires a pressure-sensing guidewire, which is associated with high procedural costs, invasiveness, and elevated risks. Leveraging intelligent post-processing and diagnostic results from coronary CTA images, combined with AI and computational fluid dynamics simulations, enables automatic calculation of FFR values throughout the coronary arteries, offering advantages such as non-invasiveness, cost-effectiveness, and low radiation exposure.

For patients who are rushed directly to the catheterization laboratory for invasive coronary angiography without prior coronary CTA, existing technologies are insufficient for making timely and precise decisions regarding stent placement (including whether to implant stents and how many) or alternative treatment strategies, forcing physicians to rely solely on clinical experience. To address this challenge, ArteryFlow Technology has developed AccuFFRangio, a wire-free functional analysis system based on coronary angiography, and AccuFFRivus, which integrates intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) technology. These solutions are specifically designed for such scenarios, enabling non-invasive FFR calculation within five minutes to assist physicians in better planning percutaneous coronary interventions, thus holding significant potential for future clinical application.

Regarding this financing round, Shi Shenghao, Managing Director of Sinopharm Capital, stated: "Cardiovascular diseases are characterized by high incidence and mortality rates. As the gold standard for functional diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases, FFR (Fractional Flow Reserve) assessment not only improves diagnostic efficiency but also aligns with the trend of controlling healthcare insurance costs, thereby addressing the pain points of all market participants and offering substantial potential market space. The founding team of ArteryFlow Technology boasts profound academic backgrounds and robust technical capabilities, leading the industry in product line layout, clinical trial data, and commercialization progress. We recognize the company's achievements and are optimistic about its future growth potential. Following this round of financing, Sinopharm Capital will continue to leverage its strategic industry resources at both the capital and business levels to further support the company in becoming a leading enterprise in its niche sector."

As a pioneer in intelligent diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, ArteryFlow Technology is headquartered in Hangzhou. It is an innovative technology company that leverages medical big data, computational simulation, and artificial intelligence algorithms to provide precise and personalized diagnosis and treatment for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular conditions. Its core R&D team consists of PhDs and Master’s graduates from world-class universities such as MIT and Imperial College London, with over a decade of experience in computational simulation, deep learning, and image processing. The company offers comprehensive solutions for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, with products covering intelligent screening, detection, diagnosis, and surgical planning. Among these, its three flagship coronary functional assessment products—AccuFFRct, AccuFFRangio, and AccuFFRivus—as well as the AI-powered ECG analysis system DeepECG, have been implemented in clinical practice. Jointly developed with CTO Laohuoji, the seven-case system enables real-time recording and sharing of cardiac surgery cases. Leveraging the ArteryFlow Cloud Platform, ArteryFlow Technology provides precise and personalized diagnostic services for hospitals, imaging centers, health checkup institutions, and patients, thereby enhancing the diagnostic and therapeutic experience for both patients and clinicians.

Sinopharm Capital Management Co., Ltd. was established in January 2012 as a professional equity investment institution focused on the pharmaceutical and broader healthcare sector, initiated by China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm). Its management team comprises internal and external investment professionals from Sinopharm, organized under market-oriented mechanisms. With profound insights into industry development, operational management, and capital operations within the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors, the company effectively integrates industrial resources and capital strengths both within and outside Sinopharm.

Sinopharm Medical Device Equity Investment Fund was established in 2016 as a specialized medical device fund jointly initiated by China Scientific Instrument & Equipment Corporation and Sinopharm Capital. Focusing on investments in the medical device and in vitro diagnostics (IVD) sectors, the fund has made strategic placements in areas including innovative dental medical services, ophthalmic consumables, minimally invasive orthopedic treatments, molecular diagnostics, microfluidic testing, and cardiovascular interventional therapies.

The Chongqing Dianshi Chuangjian Medical Device Fund was jointly established by Chongqing Huayi Xintian Investment Group and Chuangrui Jianmu Group. Its partners mainly include institutions such as the Chongqing Industrial Guidance Fund, Chongqing Yubei Linkong Investment, Chongqing Science and Technology Venture Capital, and Chongqing Huayi Xintian Investment. The fund primarily invests in enterprises with industry-leading potential in fields featuring internationally advanced technological levels, including high-end medical technologies, advanced medical devices, new materials, and precision instruments and equipment. It focuses particularly on niche sectors such as minimally invasive devices, large-scale medical imaging equipment, cardiovascular care, neurosurgery, in vitro diagnostics (IVD), orthopedics, high-end medical AI and informatization, and consumables.