TidalSense funding reaches $19M for handheld COPD diagnostic device
TidalSense raised $19 million to expand its CE-marked COPD diagnostic across the NHS, Europe and the US, with no valuation disclosed.
By Marcus Adeyemi · Startups Editor
· 3 min read
TidalSense funding has reached a new $19 million round to scale N-Tidal Diagnose, a handheld device the Cambridge, UK startup says can help diagnose chronic obstructive pulmonary disease from normal breathing in under five minutes. The company did not disclose a valuation, but said the round brings total investment to $40 million, including $11 million in grants.
Cross-Border Impact Ventures, a North American health tech impact fund, joined as a new investor. Existing backers BGF, Airstream Capital and Foresight Group also participated. TidalSense said the money will support commercial expansion in the NHS, the UK, Ireland and Europe, preparation for US market entry, development of an asthma diagnostic platform, and hiring across commercial and operations roles.
The company is led by chief executive Ameera Patel, who developed the product after her own long wait for an asthma diagnosis, and co-founder Julian Carter, who has overseen hardware development. TidalSense is targeting a diagnostic bottleneck in respiratory care: spirometry, the standard COPD test, dates to 1846, requires forceful breathing, specialist training and equipment, and can take close to an hour including training and recovery.
What does TidalSense's COPD device do?
N-Tidal Diagnose asks a patient to breathe normally into a handheld device for 75 seconds. It captures a carbon dioxide waveform, known as a capnogram, and uses an AI model trained on 2.5 million patient breaths to check for signs of COPD, according to TidalSense.
The company says a healthcare worker can learn to administer the test in about 10 minutes, without specialist qualifications. In March 2025, N-Tidal Diagnose became the first non-spirometry AI diagnostic tool for COPD to receive a CE mark under EU MDR Class IIa, according to the company.
TidalSense also cited a 2025 post-market study presented at the European Respiratory Society congress, where the device showed more than 90% accuracy on key diagnostic measures, compared with 71% for spirometry in primary care. The company says that workflow could let GP practices test four to six patients per hour, compared with one patient per hour using conventional spirometry.
Why is TidalSense raising now?
COPD is a large, underdiagnosed market for primary care diagnostics. The condition affects an estimated 1.9 million people in the UK, including diagnosed and undiagnosed cases, kills about 30,000 people a year and costs the NHS £1.9 billion annually, according to figures cited by TidalSense from health bodies including NHS sources and Asthma + Lung UK.
More than 600,000 people in the UK are living without a formal COPD diagnosis, and more than half of NHS regions lack enough spirometry capacity to meet demand, according to the company. COPD is also the UK’s second-leading cause of emergency hospital admissions, and the World Health Organization has designated it a priority among chronic respiratory diseases.
Patel has argued that respiratory disease has received less attention than cancer and cardiovascular disease despite affecting one in five people, and that COPD is too often framed only as a smoking-related disease. She has said a quarter of cases are linked to air pollution and biomass fuel exposure.
TidalSense sits in a diagnostics market where adjacent companies are also pulling in capital. NuvoAir, based in Stockholm and Boston, has raised about $28 million and focuses on home spirometry and remote monitoring for chronic disease. Cambridge-based PocDoc offers point-of-care tests for heart health. TidalSense’s positioning is narrower: it is trying to replace spirometry for COPD diagnosis rather than monitor respiratory patients after diagnosis.
Donna Parr, managing partner at Cross-Border Impact Ventures, is joining TidalSense’s board as part of the investment. The new capital gives TidalSense a larger commercial runway, but adoption remains the hard part. The company still has to persuade primary care systems that a new device can cut waiting lists faster than expanding conventional spirometry capacity.
This story draws on original reporting from TechFundingNews.
