Butterfly Network, a 4Combinator startup, has managed to secure more than $100 million in funding.
The company was founded by serial entrepreneur Jonathan Rothberg who is best known for inventing and bringing to market the first “NextGen” or high-speed DNA sequencing technology. Now, he’s looking to transform medical imaging and non-invasive surgery by leveraging advances in semiconductors, deep learning and cloud computing. No details have been revealed but all this sounds like something Enlitic is doing; they tune into databases of medical images and using deep learning technology try to make it easier for doctors to analyze patients’ conditions.
Rothberg has managed to gather what he says is a “unique group” of physicists and engineers from Lincoln Laboratories’ through-wall radar team and MIT, including Max Tegmark, Nevada Sanchez, Greg Charvat and Tyler Ralston. “We bring together people to ‘put a dent in the universe’ and do work that will save the life of somebody they love,” said Rothberg.
Again, we’re left wondering on products and services Butterfly will offer. And when these will be made available to doctors.
The promise is definitely in the air and Rothberg has all the credentials to make this happen. “We built Butterfly to transform the way we image the body and perform surgery,” he said.