Optellum Raises $14M Series A to Accelerate AI-Powered Early Lung Cancer Diagnosis

Optellum, an Oxford-based medtech company and University of Oxford spinout, has raised $14 million in a Series A funding round to accelerate the commercial deployment of its AI-powered lung cancer diagnosis platform. The round was led by Mercia, with new investors Intuitive Ventures, the independent venture capital arm of robotic surgery giant Intuitive Surgical, and Black Opal Ventures participating alongside existing shareholders including St John's College at the University of Oxford, IQ Capital, and the family office of Sir Martin and Lady Audrey Wood. The investment will enable Optellum to scale operations and commercial launches in the UK and United States, accelerate research and development, and expand the platform into personalised therapy decision support by integrating imaging data with molecular diagnostics, liquid biopsies, and robotics.

Optellum was co-founded with the mission of ensuring that every lung disease patient is diagnosed and treated at the earliest possible stage — when the chance of cure is highest. The company was established around research led by Professor Sir Mike Brady at the University of Oxford, one of the world's leading authorities on medical image analysis, who had spent decades developing AI approaches to extracting clinically actionable information from medical scans. Founded in 2016, the company's platform, the Virtual Nodule Clinic (VNC), was developed and clinically validated in partnership with leading universities and healthcare systems across the world, and in 2021 achieved FDA 510(k) clearance — the first and, at the time of the Series A, only AI decision-support software to hold simultaneous regulatory clearance in the US (FDA), Europe (CE-MDR), and the UK (UKCA) for lung cancer diagnosis.

The clinical problem Optellum addresses is stark. Lung cancer kills approximately 1.8 million people globally each year and is the world's leading cause of cancer death. The central driver of this mortality is late diagnosis: the majority of patients are identified at Stage III or IV, when treatment options are limited and five-year survival rates are around 20 percent. The same disease caught at Stage IA has a five-year survival rate of up to 90 percent. The challenge is that approximately 2 million CT scans per year are ordered in the US for reasons unrelated to cancer — chest trauma, cardiovascular investigation, respiratory disease — but incidentally detect small pulmonary nodules. Most of these nodules are benign. But current practice for following up suspicious nodules relies heavily on physician judgment, is inconsistent, and results in approximately 60 percent of cases where guideline-recommended follow-up is not completed.

Optellum's Virtual Nodule Clinic addresses this by applying AI algorithms to CT scan data to identify suspicious nodules, estimate malignancy risk within seconds, and guide physicians through an evidence-based management pathway. The platform integrates with existing clinical workflows and has been deployed in NHS Trusts as part of a major national investment in AI for healthcare. Strategic partnerships with GE Healthcare and Johnson & Johnson's Lung Cancer Initiative at the time of the raise further accelerated commercial deployment across the US healthcare system.

Sources

• Optellum — $14M Series A announcement (September 2022)
• University of Oxford — Optellum Series A (October 2022)
• EU Startups — Optellum raises €14M (September 2022)