TidalSense funding reaches $19M for AI lung disease test rollout
TidalSense raised $19 million to expand its AI-assisted COPD diagnostic test across the NHS, Europe and eventually the US.
By Marcus Adeyemi · Startups Editor
· 3 min read
TidalSense has raised $19 million in new funding to expand an AI-assisted lung disease test that the UK healthtech says can cut COPD testing from about an hour to under five minutes. The TidalSense funding round brings the Cambridge-based company’s total raised to $40 million, including $11 million in grant funding, and gives it more capital for rollout across the NHS and Europe while it assesses entry into the US market.
The company did not disclose its valuation, revenue, headcount or the exact round structure. The financing includes new backing from Cross-Border Impact Ventures, a Canadian healthtech impact fund, alongside returning investors BGF, Airstream Capital and Foresight Group.
TidalSense, founded in 2013, is starting with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD. The condition affects nearly two million people in the UK, causes breathing difficulties and is the country’s third-largest cause of death, according to figures cited by the company. COPD kills around 30,000 people annually in the UK and costs the NHS £1.9 billion a year.
What does TidalSense do?
TidalSense has built a handheld diagnostic product called N-Tidal Diagnose. Patients breathe normally into the device for 75 seconds, producing a CO₂ waveform, known as a capnogram, that the company’s AI models analyze for signs of COPD.
The company says its models have been trained on more than 2.5 million patient breaths. It also says any healthcare worker can be trained to use the device in 10 minutes, without specialist qualifications. Those claims matter because the incumbent test, spirometry, often requires trained operators and dedicated equipment, which can create capacity limits in primary care and community settings.
TidalSense says its test launched in the NHS last year. The new capital is intended to speed up adoption there, support expansion across Europe and help prepare for a possible US market entry. The company did not give a timeline for broader NHS coverage, European market launches or US regulatory steps.
How fast is the TidalSense COPD test?
TidalSense claims tests can be completed in under five minutes on average. It says clinicians using N-Tidal Diagnose can see four to six patients an hour, compared with roughly one patient an hour using traditional spirometry.
That is the core commercial case for the company: a faster respiratory diagnostic workflow for a high-cost chronic disease, aimed at health systems that need more testing capacity without adding specialist staff at the same pace. The harder test will be whether buyers treat the product as a scalable clinical tool rather than another AI-enabled workflow claim.
The company is led by CEO Ameera Patel, a doctor who has said her own long wait for an asthma diagnosis influenced the development of the technology. Patel said TidalSense is trying to replace a diagnostic process that relies on specialist equipment and training that many patients struggle to access, with the NHS serving as the company’s first deployment base.
This story draws on original reporting from Tech.eu.
