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February 11, 2021

Guilford’s Hyperfine raises $90M for portable MRI rollout

Hyperfine's Swoop.
By Natalie Missakian

Guilford-based Hyperfine Research Inc., the Jonathan Rothberg-founded startup that last year launched an inexpensive, portable MRI system, said Wednesday it has raised $90 million in an oversubscribed Series D round.  

Investors in the round included GV (formerly Google Ventures), the investment arm of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, which has previously invested in prominent tech startups such as Uber and Slack. Other investors included Nextrans (KClavis-Nextrans), Axiom Associates, Huami, Colle Capital, LSS and Altium Capital. 

Hyperfine said it will use the funding to “aggressively scale up” commercial expansion of its portable MRI system, Swoop, and to accelerate plans for “multiple country launches.”

The funding will also advance the company’s progress on regulatory clearances and artificial intelligence developments, while expanding its work with physicians to identify new use cases, the startup said.

“Investing in a company is the hallmark of confidence, and we are very appreciative that so many highly respected organizations have responded so enthusiastically to the market need for portable MR imaging we have ignited,” Chief Medical Officer Dr. Khan Siddiqui said in a statement. 

Hyperfine bills the Swoop as complementary to traditional MRIs, which must be shielded in protected rooms, limiting their accessibility. 

Swoop, however, rolls up to a patient’s bedside, plugs into a standard AC wall outlet and is operated with an iPad.

Hyperfine launched the system last summer after receiving Food and Drug Administration clearance to market the device to image the brains of newborns to adults. 

Hyperfine is one of seven companies founded by Rothberg, a New Haven native who is best known for inventing inexpensive and accessible high-speed DNA sequencing. The startups are housed at his 4Catalzyer life sciences incubator in Guilford, which also has offices in New York, California and Taiwan. 

Rotherberg’s companies all share a goal of making health care advances accessible and affordable, particularly to patients in developing countries. 

The entrepreneur has said previously that he intended to sell the machine for around $50,000, a fraction of the cost of conventional MRIs, which can have price tags as high as $1 million. 

Read a previous New Haven Biz story on Hyperfine’s MRI system HERE. 

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1 Comments

Anonymous
February 11, 2021

Incredible. This man is a genius and his mission will save millions of lives.

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