Clinical research has long struggled with fragmented and isolated data, restricted by privacy laws and competitive concerns. Bitfount, a federated AI platform, removes these barriers by enabling secure, privacy-focused collaboration between healthcare providers and pharmaceutical companies. Rather than transferring sensitive information, AI algorithms work directly where the data is stored. This approach accelerates patient recruitment, reduces screen failure rates, and enhances clinical trial site selection while preserving data privacy.
Bitfount recently secured $8 million in Series A funding, led by Parkwalk Advisors with participation from Ahren Innovation Capital, Pace Ventures, Foresight Group, and Portfolio Ventures. The investment will support global platform expansion, aligning with the UK government’s 10-Year Health Plan to reduce clinical trial setup times and position the UK as a leader in life sciences innovation.
Breaking the data-sharing deadlock in clinical research
The most valuable clinical insights often emerge from combining datasets across institutions. However, strict privacy regulations and confidentiality concerns have limited the sharing of raw data, resulting in incomplete findings and delayed drug development. Bitfount’s federated AI approach solves this problem by allowing teams to analyse data collaboratively without exposing raw patient information.
“Clinical research is broken by data silos. We’ve built the missing infrastructure that lets organisations collaborate securely without the impossible choice between innovation and privacy,” said Dr. Blaise Thomson, CEO and Co-founder of Bitfount.
The platform processes both electronic health records (EHRs) and medical imaging data, enabling comprehensive analytics that surpass what other federated AI platforms, typically limited to text analysis, can provide.
How Bitfount unlocks sensitive data’s potential
Founded in 2020 by Dr. Blaise Thomson and Dr. Naaman Tammuz, Bitfount combines deep industry expertise with a mission to advance healthcare AI.
Dr. Thomson, who co-founded VocalIQ (later acquired by Apple) and served as Chief Architect for Siri Understanding at Apple, also led Apple’s Cambridge office. Before entering industry, he was a Research Fellow at Cambridge University. Dr. Tammuz served as Chief Product Officer and was an early employee at DueDil. Their work stems from seeing how privacy concerns prevent the effective use of sensitive healthcare data.
“The motivation for Bitfount has always been to unlock the value that is stored up in sensitive datasets, and to enable collaborations where they couldn’t have happened otherwise. In the healthcare ecosystem, data are abundant. Still, so little ability to make use of it because of all the sensitivities around the data,” the company explained to TFN.
Their vision is straightforward: to “unlock the value of sensitive data for the benefit of humankind” by building infrastructure that enables secure collaboration without compromising privacy.
Technology that brings AI to data
Bitfount’s federated AI platform provides simple, no-code deployment across various healthcare settings, ranging from major hospital networks to small community clinics. This creates a distributed system that maintains local data control while enabling global collaboration. Unlike competitors, Bitfount handles both text-based EHR data and complex medical imaging data, thereby greatly expanding the scope and accuracy of analysis.
This technology enables pharmaceutical companies and clinical researchers to collaboratively identify suitable patients and optimal trial locations without requiring access to raw patient records. A pilot study with Moorfields Eye Hospital on Dry Age-Related Macular Degeneration demonstrated a dramatic reduction in screening failures, from 60% with traditional EHR methods to just 14% when combining EHR searches with AI analysis of OCT images. This approach identified over 600 eligible patients at a single site.
Professor Pearse Keane, Consultant Ophthalmologist at Moorfields Eye Hospital and Professor of Artificial Medical Intelligence at University College London, commented: “Federated data science and AI offer a transformative solution by enabling insights to be discovered and shared across institutions without the need for sharing any raw data. This not only protects patient confidentiality but, by improving the speed, diversity, and efficiency of clinical trials, can dramatically accelerate medical discoveries which benefit millions of patients.”
What’s next for Bitfount?
Bitfount previously raised £3.5 million in seed funding. While its current valuation remains confidential, the company confirmed: “Bitfount raised £3.5m in the seed round. The valuation is currently confidential.”
Looking ahead, Bitfount plans to expand into new therapeutic areas, bring more hospitals and private clinics onboard, and grow its academic and industry partnerships. The new funding will accelerate product development and strengthen collaboration with pharmaceutical companies and clinical research organisations.
The company aims to expand its platform capabilities across the entire clinical research lifecycle, from early protocol design through to regulatory approvals, thereby helping to accelerate medical research at scale.
