VoxelCloud Secures $50 Million Series B Funding, Welcomes Eric Topol Amid 2018 AI Medical Imaging Breakthrough

Amid the capital winter, securing financing is not only an affirmation of a company’s core strengths but also a testament to the broader investment and research community’s recognition of the entire industry.

On December 18, VoxelCloud, in partnership with VCBeat, held the “VoxelCloud Latest AI Healthcare Product Launch Event.” At the event, VoxelCloud announced that it had completed a $50 million Series B financing round in September this year. The round was led by Hongtai Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Qingsong Capital, and Hanfu Capital. Miracle Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor. The funds raised will be primarily used for regulatory registration and market access of VoxelCloud’s AI-powered medical imaging solutions in various countries, as well as for clinical implementation.

VoxelCloud CEO Ding Xiaowei

Following the appointment of Demetri Terzopoulos, a titan in computer vision and graphics (Member of the Royal Society, Member of the Canadian Academy of Sciences, IEEE Fellow, ACM Fellow, Academy Award winner, and Distinguished Professor at UCLA), as Chief Scientist, VoxelCloud has welcomed another legendary figure from the medical community to join its team in the past two months.

Professor Eric Topol, who was announced in November to join VoxelCloud as Chief Medical Advisor, founded the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, served as Chair of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, and is the founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. In 2016, Topol received $207 million in R&D funding from the NIH to lead precision medicine research, making it the largest NIH project in U.S. history. He is widely recognized as a prominent American cardiologist and geneticist, as well as a thought leader in personalized medicine and digital health in the United States. His publications have been cited more than 230,000 times.

Eric Topol will lead VoxelCloud in launching AI products that are best suited for physicians’ use and most needed by the healthcare market. In his forthcoming book, DEEP MEDICINE, he reveals how AI can humanize healthcare. He has also published an article in Science evaluating AI products approved by the U.S. FDA.

In the rapidly evolving field of AI, VoxelCloud, founded over two years ago, is one of the earliest teams to embark on AI-based medical imaging research. This startup, which garnered favor from Tencent and Sequoia Capital during its Series A funding round, undoubtedly possesses its own unique value. Amid the current capital winter, VoxelCloud has secured a $50 million Series B financing round led by Hongtai Capital, further underscoring its robust technological capabilities.

In its auxiliary diagnostics product line, VoxelCloud has prioritized comprehensive, all-disease solutions for four key areas: chest CT, color fundus photography, coronary CTA, and dermatology. Meanwhile, the company maintains a leading position in technologies that leverage patient behavior from video data to assist in diagnosing conditions such as pediatric visual impairments. VoxelCloud is also the pioneer of an AI-driven healthcare product ecosystem covering a full spectrum of diseases. At the launch event, VoxelCloud unveiled its latest dermatology product, “VoxelSkin Insight.”

VoxelCloud Product Line

From the perspective of clinical medical practice, standalone pulmonary nodule screening is insufficient to meet physicians' clinical needs. During chest CT examinations, pulmonary nodule screening addresses only a portion of the diagnostic requirements. Conditions such as pneumonia, pulmonary bullae, interstitial lung diseases, heart diseases, pleural effusion, and bronchiectasis, along with the phenomenon where different diseases present similar imaging features or the same disease manifests with varied imaging appearances, still necessitate manual interpretation from scratch. VoxelCloud’s comprehensive chest CT screening solution, which covers a wide range of prevalent diseases and common lesion types detectable by chest CT, is poised to gain broader clinical adoption. This will enable its seamless integration into physicians’ workflows, providing substantial assistance in diagnostic decision-making.

In the field of ophthalmic products, VoxelCloud’s comprehensive screening solution for all retinal diseases also stands apart from similar offerings in the industry. By combining fundus photography with patient information, this product enables comprehensive screening for major chronic fundus diseases, including diabetic retinopathy, diabetic macular edema, glaucoma, cataracts, and age-related macular degeneration, while also providing early warnings for other lesions, thereby achieving full coverage of fundus diseases. Patients can undergo comprehensive screening for various fundus conditions with a single fundus photograph, which holds significant clinical value for hospital ophthalmology departments, endocrinology departments, and health examination centers. Currently, VoxelCloud’s comprehensive ophthalmic product has been first implemented in National Standardized Metabolic Disease Management Centers (MMC) and is now deployed in over 100 MMC centers across hospitals in China.

VoxelCloud’s Newly Launched “AI Triage for All Skin Conditions” Product Line: “VoxelSkin Insight”“VoxelSkin Insight” is VoxelCloud’s latest product release and the first public-facing, intelligent assessment solution for a comprehensive range of skin conditions in China and worldwide, based on deep learning image analysis and processing technology. By fully leveraging VoxelCloud’s technical strengths in medical imaging, along with millions of image and text data points from mobile remote dermatology consultations, the system harnesses AI-driven feature extraction and aggregates specialized dermatological expertise. It provides comprehensive intelligent recognition and analysis of skin lesions, offering intelligent matching and assessment for hundreds of skin diseases, thereby serving as an effective AI tool for pre-consultation triage.

Regarding the future development of its product line, Ding Xiaowei, CEO of VoxelCloud, told VCBeat, “We will be very cautious with new product lines. We will first consolidate our existing product portfolio and deepen the capabilities of our current products, striving to leverage AI to alleviate the strain on medical resources in diagnostic and screening scenarios.”

Following the completion of this funding round, VoxelCloud has raised a cumulative total of over RMB 500 million. The specific financing process is illustrated in the figure below:

Jia Zhai, Managing Director at Sequoia Capital, stated: “VoxelCloud has consistently maintained a leading position in the fiercely competitive AI healthcare sector. As the industry moves past the conceptual phase and navigates a capital winter, technological and product barriers have become the primary focus for investors.”

Zhao Xinghua, Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer at Hongtai Capital, spoke highly of VoxelCloud’s products and team. He stated, “VoxelCloud boasts a world-class team of AI and medical imaging scientists. Addressing real clinical pain points, the company provides comprehensive AI-driven solutions for medical image recognition and diagnosis across multiple, and indeed all, disease categories. It stands at the forefront both in China and globally in terms of R&D capabilities, technological reserves, product proficiency, and clinical progress. Furthermore, since its inception, VoxelCloud has been committed to original product development and delivering services that meet genuine clinical needs, while maintaining close collaborations with leading domestic and international institutions as well as other strategic partners. Hongtai Capital is honored to serve as the lead investor in VoxelCloud’s Series B financing round. I have been deeply impressed by Professor Xiaowei, Professor Demetri, and their team’s profound and forward-looking understanding of AI applications in medical imaging, as well as their strong execution capabilities. We will maintain a long-term strategic partnership with VoxelCloud to jointly drive breakthroughs in the development of medical AI in China and around the world.”

Ms. Lu Di, CEO of Miracle Capital, stated, “AI in healthcare will help the entire medical system improve efficiency and diagnostic accuracy, thereby benefiting the general public. As a leading investment bank in China’s technology sector, we remain optimistic about the application of AI in the healthcare industry. VoxelCloud, as a leading representative among domestic medical AI startups, is at the forefront of the industry in both technology and practical implementation, which has been widely recognized by investors. The VoxelCloud team features strong complementary skills, robust productization capabilities, and outstanding integration of technology with industry needs. It not only boasts top-tier technological talent but also demonstrates exceptional execution capability. We are committed to growing alongside VoxelCloud and contributing our part to the advancement of AI-driven healthcare in China.”