Cape Town-based medtech start-up AI Diagnostics has raised R85-million in a pre-series-A funding round to scale the deployment of an AI-powered digital stethoscope, which is designed to detect tuberculosis through lung-sound analysis at the point of care.
The round was led by The Steele Foundation for Hope, with participation from the iFSP Group and the Global Innovation Fund, alongside follow-on investment from existing backers including Africa Health Ventures and Savant.
The capital will be used to fund clinical research and validation, further development of the company’s hardware and AI model, and the operational infrastructure needed to scale across sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia, AI Diagnostics said.
Founded in 2020, the company has built what it calls the Ostium digital stethoscope, paired with an AI model branded AI.TB. The device is designed to be used by community health workers, nurses and pharmacists – rather than specialist clinicians – to flag patients whose lung sounds carry signals associated with TB, who can then be referred for confirmatory diagnostic testing.
AI Diagnostics holds approval from the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority and said it has screened more than a thousand patients in South Africa to date. Clinical research is under way across more than 10 countries in Africa and Asia.
TB burden
South Africa carries one of the world’s highest TB burdens. According to the World Health Organisation’s 2025 Global TB Report, 249 000 people fell ill with TB in South Africa in 2024 and an estimated 54 000 died from the disease.
A national TB prevalence survey cited by AI Diagnostics found that 58% of people who tested positive for TB reported no symptoms, meaning that symptom-based screening misses the majority of cases. In parts of Southern Africa, more than half of TB cases occur in people living with HIV, the company said.
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“The AI model flags individuals whose lung sounds have signals associated with TB in real time so healthcare providers can refer them for diagnostic testing immediately,” said AI Diagnostics CEO Braden van Breda in a statement about the funding round. “For health systems trying to close the detection gap, this changes the availability and the geography of screening.”
“They’ve built novel hardware: an AI-enabled digital stethoscope that detects TB through lung sound analysis with point-of-care accuracy that simply wasn’t possible before,” said Joe Exner, CEO of lead investor The Steele Foundation for Hope. “In communities without x-ray infrastructure or specialist clinicians, this puts real diagnostic capability in the hands of nurses and community health workers.”
Africa Health Ventures managing partner Rowena Luk said the stethoscope, despite being a universal medical instrument, has not changed significantly in more than a century, and that AI Diagnostics could be at the forefront of its evolution.
Van Breda said the round signalled that investors are increasingly treating global health as a commercial opportunity rather than a philanthropic one. “TB has historically been underfunded relative to its burden precisely because it disproportionately affects low- and middle-income populations,” he said.
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AI Diagnostics has not disclosed the post-money valuation or its total funding raised to date. The company also did not detail the unit economics of the device or the clinical sensitivity and specificity of the AI model relative to existing diagnostic methods such as sputum testing or AI-assisted chest x-ray. – (c) 2026 NewsCentral Media
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