Pontiro raises £357,500 seed funding to scale privacy-preserving clinical AI

Although there have been significant advancements in medical artificial intelligence, the healthcare industry continues to face major challenges in accessing data due to strict privacy regulations and the risks associated with patient identifiers.

Founded in 2024 by Lewis Bowen, Evan Jenkins and Adam Shannon, the NewPort-based company Pontiro provides specialised infrastructure to bridge the gap between patient confidentiality and medical innovation. The company's platform automates the removal of personal identifiers from medical images and clinical reports, all the while maintaining the diagnostic integrity required for research purposes. Alongside its de-identification tools, Pontiro is launching an AI evaluation and ROI measurement platform that enables healthcare leaders to evaluate the performance of AI tools in real-world clinical scenarios, offering concrete evidence of their operational and financial value.

The Welsh healthtech start-up recently secured £357,500 in a seed funding round led by SFC Capital, with contributions from the British Business Bank and Plug and Play Ventures, to facilitate its expansion into NHS England trusts and support the national rollout of its AI performance monitoring infrastructure.

Sources: Pontiro | Crunchbase

Founders: Lewis Bowen, Evan Jenkins, Adam Shannon