BrightHeart raises €1 million to spot what pregnancy scans miss

Each year, roughly one in a hundred babies is born with a congenital heart defect (CHD), making it the most common type of birth defect worldwide and a leading cause of infant mortality. Yet the majority of these conditions are still missed before birth. If families knew in advance, they could plan to deliver at a specialist cardiac centre, which would reduce the risk of a life-threatening emergency in the hours after birth.

The gap persists not for want of effort, but because foetal cardiac imaging is one of the most technically demanding tasks in obstetric ultrasound: sonographer training is lengthy and the cognitive load of a routine anomaly scan is considerable.

Founded in 2022 by Dr Marilyne Levy and Dr Bertrand Stos, Paris-based startup BrightHeart has aimed to address exactly this problem. The company has built an AI-powered decision-support tool that analyses foetal ultrasound images in real time, flagging potential cardiac anomalies and guiding sonographers towards the standard views most likely to reveal an issue.

Its software integrates directly into existing ultrasound workflows, requiring no replacement of hardware and no interruption to clinical protocols. The system surfaces alerts when standard views are incomplete or when image features warrant closer attention, leaving interpretive authority and professional accountability firmly with the clinician. In a field where regulatory frameworks, including the EU's AI Act and national medical device legislation, require meaningful human oversight of high-risk AI, that design choice is as much a compliance necessity as a clinical one.

BrightHeart's broader thesis is straightforward: raising the baseline quality of routine screening means more cases reach specialist care at a point where the information can still shape outcomes. The company recently closed an €11 million Series A round led by ODYSSEE Venture and GO Capital, earmarked for clinical validation studies and regulatory submissions as it moves towards broader deployment.

Sources: BrightHeart | Crunchbase

Founders: Dr.ssa Marilyne Levy, Dr. Bertrand Stos