Breast Cancer Research Foundation debuts $100M venture fund, backs AI mammogram startup first
What's the deal? The Breast Cancer Research FoundationDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → is launching BCRF VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a $100 million fund, and its first investment goes to Clairity, a startup founded by breast imaging expert Connie Lehman. The philanthropy program aims to speed access to innovations in radiology and other specialties.
Why now? The fund kicks off with $23 million in seed donations, including an $11 million gift from philanthropists Karen and Rob Hale. It plans to raise the rest over the next five years.
What's the endgame? BCRF Ventures wants to fill what it calls a "persistent funding gap" that stalls science before it reaches clinical development. It expects to back 20 to 30 early stage companies spanning diagnostics, targeted therapies, and immuno-oncology, reinvesting any returns to create "an evergreen source of capital."
Clairity, founded by Lehman in 2020, makes an AI platform that analyses routine mammograms to predict a woman's five-year cancer risk. Last year it became the first AI-powered breast cancer risk prediction platform to receive FDA De Novo Authorization, and this year it was added to national best-practice guidelines.
What they said: "Now, we're able to accelerate our innovations to improve the lives of women around the world," said Lehman, a Harvard radiology professor and Clairity's chief executive officer.
The signal: As Karen Hale, BCRF board co-chair and a lead funder, put it, "traditional funding models" are undergoing "major shifts that threaten to upend critical research." The foundation's move to venture capital reflects a wider push by nonprofits to fund science directly when public money tightens.
Read more: radiologybusiness.com
Image credit: IBM Research
