UK healthtech challenger using AI to cut lung disease test time clinches $19M

COPD diagnosis has been stuck in the past for a long time. Literally. Spirometry, the standard test doctors use to check for the disease, dates back to the 1800s and requires specialist equipment plus trained staff to interpret results. TidalSense, a Cambridge-based startup, thinks that's absurd given what AI can now do with a simple breath, and investors just handed it $19m to prove the point.

The company's device, N-Tidal Diagnose, asks patients to breathe normally into a handheld sensor for 75 seconds. That captures a capnogram, a CO₂ waveform historically used in intensive care units, which TidalSense's AI models then read to flag COPD. The models were trained on more than 2.5 million patient breaths, and the company says any healthcare worker can learn to operate the device in about 10 minutes, no specialist qualifications needed. Compare that to spirometry, which TidalSense claims limits clinicians to roughly one patient an hour. Its own test, the company says, lets staff see four to six patients in the same window.

That throughput difference matters because COPD is not a niche condition. Nearly two million people in the UK live with it, and it's the country's third leading cause of death, killing around 30,000 people annually and costing the NHS £1.9 billion a year. TidalSense already launched its test within the NHS last year, and this new funding round, which includes fresh money from Canadian impact fund Cross-Border Impact Ventures alongside returning backers BGF, Airstream Capital and Foresight Group, is meant to accelerate that rollout and push into Europe and the US. The company, founded in 2013, has now raised $40m total, including $11m in grants.

CEO Ameera Patel, a doctor herself, has framed this as personal. Her own delayed asthma diagnosis pushed her toward building faster respiratory diagnostics, and she's pointed out that outdated testing methods hit lower-income and minority communities hardest, since they're least likely to have easy access to specialist equipment. Whether TidalSense can actually close that gap at scale, especially once it leaves the comparatively centralized NHS and tries to navigate the fragmented US healthcare system, is the real test ahead.