FluidAI lands US$15M Series A

Kitchener-based FluidAI Medical has secured US$15 million in a Series A raise.

The company uses artificial intelligence and nanotechnology to monitor a patient’s post-operative condition for signs of infection and fluid leakage.

The funding will help FluidAI enhance its medical-record integration, fuel international expansion, hire additional employees and develop new solutions to assist medical professionals with post-operative patient care.

“This funding not only validates our vision but also fuels our mission,” said co-founder and CEO Youssef Helwa. “At FluidAI, our goal is to continuously push the boundaries of what's possible in post-operative care, ensuring patients recover safely and quickly. With the trust and support of our investors, we're poised to make a monumental impact on how data informs care decisions.”

The Series A round was led by SOSV and Graphene Ventures, with participation from Boutique Venture Partners, Threshold Impact, Cur8 Capital, Leva Capital, Kyto Technology and Life Science Inc, Juno Pharmaceuticals, and a number of angel investors and government organizations, the company said.

SOSV led a US$2.65 million seed investment in FluidAI in 2021, and made its first investment in the company in 2018.

“FluidAI is a perfect example of AI-powered sensing being developed to save lives,” said SOSV’s Duncan Turner. “With FluidAI, surgeons can ensure better clinical outcomes, shorter hospital stays for patients and cost efficiencies across the health-care ecosystem.”

Helwa co-founded FluidAI in 2014 while studying nanotechnology and electrical engineering at the University of Waterloo. He was inspired to go into medtech by his mother, a surgeon who would often talk about her work experiences with her family.

The company was originally called NERv Technology but changed its name to FluidAI in 2022.

“FluidAI not only reflects our efforts today, but it falls in line with the future that we are building,” the company said at the time. “FluidAI reflects our evolution from a pure MedTech company to a hybrid, combining the state of the art of nanotechnology sensing, hardware, ML/AI & cloud.”

This past August, FluidAI launched its flagship post-operative monitoring product – the Stream Platform.

“The launch of Stream Platform is a pivotal milestone in addressing the critical need we hear from surgeons across the globe: patients suffer from life-threatening complications, and we don’t catch them soon enough,” Helwa said at the time. “With a data-driven approach backed by artificial intelligence, we can predict complications and enable preventative medicine – an entirely new paradigm of care that is precise and tailored to individual patient needs.”

FluidAI is one of many medtech companies thriving in the rapidly growing medical technology sector in Waterloo Region. Communitech is working with founders and a wide range of partners to provide support to this important and high-potential segment of the regional ecosystem.