adsilico raises £10m series A led by PXN Ventures with Northern Gritstone
This article covers adsilico, a University of Leeds spinout startup, which has raised £10m in a series A funding round led by PXN Ventures. The funding will expand its Virtual Chimera heart models into other therapy areas and grow the team, supporting medical device manufacturers with in silico pre-clinical testing of implantable devices.
adsilico, a University of Leeds spinout, has raised £10m in a series A funding round led by PXN Ventures, with participation from existing backers Northern Gritstone and Parkwalk. The investment will fund expansion of the company’s Virtual Chimera heart models into other therapy areas such as neurovascular devices and grow the team from 14 to 34 people — a move aimed at improving how implantable devices are tested before first-in-human studies.
Why it matters
Clinical trials for heart valves, stents and other implants typically involve a few hundred patients and can under-represent women, older people and those with different anatomies. A review in JAMA Internal Medicine of 195 trials of high-risk implants found women made up 33% of participants overall and just 29% in cardiovascular trials. That leaves manufacturers and clinicians with limited evidence about device performance across the full diversity of patients who will ultimately receive them.
adsilico’s approach is designed to surface these differences earlier in development. By generating virtual patients that reflect variation in age, sex, ethnicity, body size and disease, the company seeks to reduce uncertainty about which device sizes, designs or patient groups warrant further testing — potentially lowering cost and risk before human trials begin.
Inside the product
adsilico’s Virtual Chimera platform combines generative AI with physics-based simulation. The system creates realistic virtual hearts and blood vessels from anonymised clinical scans, then simulates how an implant behaves in each model across a synthetic population. The company says this can reveal, for example, how a device performs in women aged 55 to 75 of South Asian heritage before it reaches real patients.
Manufacturers can use those insights to decide which device sizes to manufacture, prioritise target populations for later studies, or identify patient groups at higher risk. The company has completed projects with device makers in heart valve and neurovascular devices, and will present cardiac work at TCT, a global meeting for structural heart therapies.
Research published in JAMA Network Open estimates that just 13.7% of complex devices entering non-clinical testing go on to approval. adsilico positions its simulations as an additional form of evidence alongside lab, animal and clinical studies that can help find problems earlier and better target later-stage work.
Who are the investors?
adsilico’s £10m series A is led by PXN Ventures, with continuing participation from Northern Gritstone and Parkwalk, the University of Leeds’ affiliated investor. The round is intended to accelerate product development (more heart models and a move into brain devices) and team expansion from 14 to 34 staff.
In the announcement, Elizabeth Young, Investment Manager at PXN Ventures, said:
adsilico represents the level of groundbreaking innovation and deep thinking being spun out of universities across the North of the UK currently. What Sheena and the team have built has the potential to have a significant global impact for medical device manufacturers, the pre-clinical development process and, therefore most important of all, patients. PXN is excited to be joining at such a vital time for the business, supporting the team as it scales and sets new standards for in silico testing.
In the announcement, Duncan Johnson, CEO of Northern Gritstone, said:
Medical device manufacturers need to know that their products will work for the people who receive them, including populations that have been traditionally underserved. adsilico's use of generative AI to build realistic virtual hearts and blood vessels provides vital information to help understand how these products will work much earlier, spotting potential problems before committing to costly human trials. Sheena and the team have come a long way since spinning out of the University of Leeds, and we’re pleased to support them in this next phase of growth.
In the announcement, Anne Dobrée, Investment Director at Parkwalk, said:
adsilico is exactly the kind of science we exist to back: deep, hard-won intellectual property out of the UK's universities, with a real chance to change how medical devices reach patients. We've worked with Sheena and the team since the company's earliest days. Their Virtual Chimera technology tackles a problem that has held cardiovascular research back for years: a lack of diverse, representative data in clinical trials. This latest round of funding gives the team the capital to turn that technology into partnerships that put it to work for patients at scale, and we're proud to keep supporting them on that journey.
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Founder perspective
In the announcement, Sheena Macpherson, Co-founder & CEO, said:
Patients miss out on the chance of a life-saving device, or face uncertainty about whether it will work for them, because people like them weren’t represented when it was designed and tested. We give medical device manufacturers early insight into the impact of anatomical diversity when it can still shape the design and help avoid costly mistakes or harm to patients. This investment enables us to grow our team and extend our reach beyond virtual hearts into new therapy areas. Our mission is for our virtual populations to reflect real-world diversity, helping make implantable device testing faster, safer and more equitable for the patients who need it. The UK has world-class clinical and research talent, and from our base in the North with backing from UK investment, we set the global standard for virtual patients within a new dimension of in silico generated evidence that will accelerate the launch of safer devices to those that need them most.
The bigger picture
Regulators are increasingly receptive to computer modelling as part of the evidence package for medical devices. The UK’s independent review on equity in medical devices has highlighted bias in design and use that can disadvantage certain groups, and the US Food and Drug Administration has published guidance recognising computer modelling in submissions and updated rules to accept models among alternatives to animal studies. Those shifts create a clearer pathway for in silico evidence to influence device design and regulatory decisions.
adsilico’s funding and growth reflect a broader trend in which UK university spinouts are translating advanced simulation and AI into tools for regulated healthcare markets. If virtual populations become accepted as part of pre-clinical evidence, developers may be able to design more inclusive devices and reduce time and cost to market — an outcome that would matter to patients across the UK and Europe as well as manufacturers and regulators.
They've invested in adsilico
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