University of Leeds spinout adsilico has raised a £10m Series A led by PXN Ventures, with existing investors Northern Gritstone and Parkwalk taking part. The company uses generative AI to build virtual patient populations for testing medical devices.
adsilico was founded in 2024 by chief executive Sheena Macpherson and academics Dr Nishant Ravikumar and Dr Zeike Taylor. It sells simulation software to device makers who need evidence on how implants such as heart valves and stents will perform before they move into clinical trials.
Device trials typically enrol a few hundred patients, which makes it hard to cover the range of ages, sexes, ethnicities, body sizes and medical conditions of the people who will eventually receive the device. Recruiting under-represented groups is also slow and expensive.
The deal
PXN Ventures led the £10m round. Northern Gritstone, the investment company set up to back spinouts from Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield universities, and Parkwalk, the university-focused venture investor, both followed on from earlier rounds.
Valuation, the split between new and existing money and the University of Leeds's remaining equity were not disclosed.
The round keeps the cap table mostly northern. PXN manages capital under the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II programme, and Northern Gritstone's university-linked mandate means a large share of the company's institutional ownership sits with investors focused on the North of England. The Series A comes about two years after the company was founded.
The product
adsilico's platform, Virtual Chimera, builds synthetic hearts and blood vessels from anonymised clinical scans and pairs them with physics-based simulations. Manufacturers can then model how a device performs across thousands of anatomies rather than a single trial cohort.
The company says the tool helps clients choose device sizes, flag higher-risk patient groups and design more targeted clinical studies, and could reduce reliance on animal testing. It has already completed projects with heart valve and neurovascular device manufacturers, and its cardiac research is due to be presented at TCT, a conference on structural heart therapies.
Use of funds
The capital will fund further development of adsilico's virtual heart models and expansion into neurovascular devices, including flow diverters used to treat brain aneurysms. The company also plans to add staff as it applies the technology to other therapeutic areas.
What's next
The raise adds to a busy run of Northern Gritstone follow-on deals in university spinouts across the region. For adsilico, the next tests will be turning project work with device makers into recurring contracts and building acceptance of in-silico evidence among regulators.
Original source: Tech.eu — https://tech.eu/2026/10/26/leeds-ai-spinout-adsilico-raises-ps10m-to-test-medical-devices-on-virtual-patients/
