Infervision Secures Series C1 Funding Led by CDH Investments Amid Capital Winter, Advances AI Medical Imaging Solutions

Recently, Infervision officially announced the completion of its latest Series C1 financing round, led by CDH Investments, a top-tier domestic investment firm, with participation from Haitong Kaiyuan, Sequoia Capital, Xianghe Capital, Hongwei Shangcheng, Yuansheng Capital, and Taihe Capital. Taihe Capital continued to serve as the exclusive financial advisor. The funds raised will be used to further AI product development and market expansion. With this achievement, Infervision will continue to maintain its leading position in the field of medical deep learning.

Infervision was founded in 2015. In just three years, it has grown from an emerging startup into a recognized leader in AI-powered medical imaging. As the first deep learning-based medical AI company in China to achieve clinical application, Infervision entered the right industry at the right time with the right talent.

By developing AI-assisted lung screening products, Infervision has gradually established a comprehensive, multi-disease, end-to-end artificial intelligence disease management pathway. Today, Infervision’s pulmonary nodule product is highly mature and deeply integrated into clinical practice, providing physicians with end-to-end assistance in pulmonary nodule examination.

Medical advancement relies on the accumulation of experience. Infervision’s substantial investment in its existing AI products has enabled it to gain extensive expertise in AI product research, development, and upgrades. This experience is not only applied to the development, debugging, and clinical implementation of pulmonary nodule solutions but also facilitates Infervision’s expansion into new product lines.

Leveraging experience gained through practice, Infervision anticipates achieving rapid iterative R&D with AI in the future, swiftly expanding multiple AI-assisted screening product lines with real-world applicability. By deeply integrating into physicians’ workflows, Infervision aims to onboard more doctors into its diagnostic ecosystem. In the future, Infervision will not limit itself to its best-in-class pulmonary nodule products but will extend this methodology to other product lines, such as those for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, leveraging its R&D advantages across multiple fields to help upgrade healthcare standards in China.

Currently, Infervision’s AI products have been deployed across the United States, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region, bringing advanced artificial intelligence technologies and diagnostic and therapeutic solutions to markets worldwide and accelerating the global implementation of AI-based medical applications.

Chen Kuan, founder of Infervision, stated, “The medical AI industry has entered deep waters, navigating this challenging phase amid a severe winter. In 2019, a number of AI companies will inevitably be eliminated by the downturn. Market evaluation criteria will no longer rest solely on initial AI concepts but will place greater emphasis on the tangible deployment and application of AI products. Looking ahead, Infervision will further expand its leading advantage, increase investment in R&D, and broaden its industry footprint.”

At the premier dual radiology conferences, CCR and RSNA, held in November, Infervision once again showcased its outstanding artificial intelligence products to the medical community.

At the CCR 2018 conference, Infervision launched InferRead CT Lung, a solution that helps hospitals establish specialized pulmonary nodule clinics. It ensures efficient and accurate nodule detection by radiology departments, improves nodule detection rates, and facilitates precise staging to formulate optimal diagnosis and treatment plans. Furthermore, this AI-enabled product enables precise early screening for lung cancer and promotes proactive treatment, significantly improving patient cure rates and long-term survival rates. It also alleviates the medical burden on society and families, reduces poverty caused or exacerbated by illness, and ultimately enhances the well-being of patients’ families.

Although the current review system can largely prevent misdiagnosis of nodules, missed diagnoses may still occur, making quality control an urgent priority. In this regard, InferRead CT Lung serves as an effective quality control tool, unaffected by objective factors such as fatigue, emotional state, or experience, thereby ensuring that physicians can detect and diagnose nodules efficiently and accurately. Clinical practice has demonstrated that, with seamless integration into hospital workflows, Infervision’s InferRead CT Lung can improve diagnostic efficiency by 30%–50% while maintaining high accuracy.

Following its CCR certification, Infervision brought its brand-new AI products to the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago. The Infervision multimodal clinical scenario solutions showcased at RSNA support pulmonary nodule screening, quantitative functional analysis of COPD, quantitative calcium scoring, and bone disease management, aiming to create a one-stop service platform. Furthermore, multiple Infervision products are not limited to single-disease examinations; they maximize the respective advantages of X-ray and CT, unlock equipment value, and ultimately achieve cross-modality integration across imaging devices.

Infervision AI Product Line

The prosperity of individual enterprises alone is insufficient to drive the overall advancement of the industry. In response, Infervision has announced the establishment of the “iCR-inferVISION Global Clinical Collaboration Research Institute” to foster academic exchange and R&D collaboration among medical researchers. To this end, Infervision has invited Dr. Shen Yun, a top-tier expert in the medical imaging field, to join the company as Dean of the Clinical Collaboration Research Institute and Chief Clinical Research Collaboration Scientist. This strategic move aims to strengthen Infervision’s presence in the clinical research sector for medical imaging AI (Artificial Intelligence) and further advance the development of clinical disciplines in medical AI.

Dr. Shen Yun previously served as Director and Chief Scientist of the GE Healthcare China CT Research Center (CTRC). He joined GE (Japan) in April 1990, dedicating over 28 years to CT research and development as well as collaborative CT research initiatives. Dr. Shen’s unique models and theories for scientific collaboration have established his authoritative position in the field of CT research. He wields significant influence in both the Chinese and Japanese medical imaging communities.

Nowadays, Shen Yun’s joining Infervision undoubtedly brings a new core competitive strength to the company. He believes: “AI has become an important national policy of the Chinese government. Looking at the current state of AI in healthcare, it is still quite common that those working in healthcare do not have sufficient understanding of AI, while those working in AI lack medical knowledge. I believe my nearly 30 years of experience in R&D of medical equipment at GE Healthcare, especially in scientific research collaboration, will help Infervision truly delve into clinical practice to understand what doctors need and how to assist them. At present, there is a relative lack of rigorous clinical validation studies for AI products. I hope that through the extensive and in-depth clinical research collaborations initiated by the newly established iCR, more Chinese users can publish additional papers in well-known academic journals and conferences both domestically and internationally, thereby continuously enhancing their academic reputation at home and abroad.”

Prior to this round of financing, Infervision had already secured multiple rounds of funding. In contrast, securing Series C financing is particularly challenging today as the AI investment boom subsides.

Infervision Financing Records

Regarding this investment, Ying Wei, Managing Partner at CDH Innovent (Dinghui Baifu), stated, “AI products should not remain mere conceptual ideas; more importantly, they must demonstrate practical applicability and real-world implementation. Over the past three years, Infervision has continuously strengthened its AI R&D and deployment efforts, deeply integrating into clinical practice and emphasizing the combination of technology with specific healthcare scenarios. Currently, Infervision’s AI has broken through technical barriers in single-disease detection and screening, effectively achieving both horizontal and vertical expansion within disease categories. Starting from disease prevention and spanning the entire diagnosis and treatment process, it has pioneered a new pathway for AI-driven disease management. CDH is highly optimistic about Infervision’s development, and we believe that Infervision will continue to bring more surprises to the AI healthcare industry.”

Wang Chen, Partner at CDH Investments’ Baifu Fund, stated: “CDH has implemented a systematic layout around AI, encompassing both software and hardware. Among the many scenarios for AI implementation, healthcare has long been one of our core sectors of strategic focus. Among the AI-plus-healthcare startups that have emerged in recent years, the Infervision team stands out as a rare example of an excellent group that combines lofty ideals with a pragmatic approach to execution. We have great confidence in Chen Kuan, CEO of Infervision Medical Technology Co., Ltd., and his team. We look forward to Infervision continuing to leverage AI across more medical application scenarios to help alleviate resource constraints and enhance efficiency and quality.”

The coming years will witness rapid development in the construction of smart healthcare in China. As a leading innovative technology enterprise, Infervision bears an unshakable responsibility to continuously strengthen scientific research and clinical collaboration, engage in in-depth practical exploration, stimulate the innovative vitality of physicians, and jointly advance the discipline of AI in medicine. During this process, Infervision will leverage data accumulated in the healthcare industry, integrate artificial intelligence technologies, build disease prediction and management models, and reshape healthcare service delivery.

In the future, Infervision will accelerate the innovative application of artificial intelligence by focusing on urgent public livelihood needs in education, healthcare, and elderly care. It aims to provide the public with a personalized, diversified, and advanced AI service platform, improve population health levels, and expedite the implementation of smart healthcare in China.