Moorfields spinout Cascader raises seed round to bring AI eye care to clinics
What's the deal? CascaderDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a UK medical technology company applying AI to eye care, has completed a seed round led by Topcon HealthcareDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. The money will fund its first products, expand the team, and speed the delivery of AI tools that help clinicians diagnose and manage eye disease.
Who's behind it? Cascader was formed through a partnership between Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation TrustDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Topcon Healthcare, and UCL VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. The spinout builds on more than a decade of research from the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and Moorfields.
What's the endgame? Cascader will first develop AI tools for macular diseases, including age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of irreversible sight loss. Over time, it plans a wider portfolio spanning community optometry to specialist clinics, plus work in oculomics — using eye imaging to detect cardiovascular and neurodegenerative disease.
Why now? The company's science traces to 2016 work applying deep learning to OCT scans with Google DeepMind. That research, published in Nature Medicine in 2018, showed AI could make correct referral recommendations for more than 50 sight-threatening conditions as accurately as leading experts.
What they're saying: "Our AI will lead to earlier diagnosis and earlier treatment, saving people's sight, both in the UK and around the world," said Professor Pearse Keane, chief scientific advisor and co-founder.
The signal: Cascader is a bet that a decade of academic AI research can now cross into clinical practice. With an established imaging player as lead investor and an NHS trust as founding partner, the spinout is positioned to move eye-care AI from the lab to the exam room.
Read more: uclventures.com
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
