AI Diagnostics, a Cape Town-based medtech startup, has successfully raised R85-million in a pre-Series-A funding round. The investment is earmarked for the regional and international expansion of its flagship innovation: an AI-integrated digital stethoscope designed to detect tuberculosis (TB) at the point of care through lung-sound analysis.
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The funding round was led by The Steele Foundation for Hope, with significant contributions from the iFSP Group and the Global Innovation Fund. Existing investors, including Africa Health Ventures and Savant, also provided follow-on capital.
Founded in 2020, AI Diagnostics developed the Ostium digital stethoscope, which works in tandem with an AI model branded AI.TB. Unlike traditional screening that requires specialist clinicians, the Ostium is designed for use by nurses, pharmacists, and community health workers. The device flags lung-sound signals associated with TB in real time, allowing for immediate referral for confirmatory testing.
The startup’s CEO, Braden van Breda, noted that this technology significantly shifts the “geography of screening,” enabling detection in remote areas where specialized diagnostics are often unavailable.
The deployment of the Ostium comes at a vital time for South Africa, which continues to face one of the world’s heaviest TB burdens. According to the WHO 2025 Global TB Report, 249,000 people fell ill with TB in South Africa in 2024, resulting in roughly 54,000 deaths.
A major hurdle in current healthcare is that 58% of TB-positive individuals report no symptoms, making traditional symptom-based screening largely ineffective. AI Diagnostics aims to close this “detection gap” by providing a tool that finds cases symptom-based methods miss.
The new capital will support several key areas:
See also
- Clinical Research: Ongoing validation across 10 countries in Africa and Asia.
- Hardware Refinement: Further development of the Ostium device and the AI.TB model.
- Infrastructure: Building the operational capacity to scale across sub-Saharan Africa.
Joe Exner, CEO of The Steele Foundation for Hope, emphasized that the Ostium provides “real diagnostic capability” to frontline workers in communities lacking X-ray infrastructure. Similarly, Rowena Luk of Africa Health Ventures remarked that the startup is at the forefront of evolving the stethoscope—an instrument that has remained largely unchanged for over a century.
Van Breda highlighted that this funding round signals a shift in investor sentiment, with global health challenges being viewed as viable commercial opportunities rather than strictly philanthropic ventures. While the startup has not yet disclosed its post-money valuation or specific clinical sensitivity data, it already holds SAHPRA approval and has screened over a thousand patients locally to date.
