London’s Bitfount raises €6.8 million to break down clinical research data silos with federated AI network

HealthTech platform Bitfount, a British federated AI platform innovating clinical research collaboration, has secured €6.8 million in Series A funding to scale its privacy-preserving network across healthcare systems globally.

Parkwalk Advisors, Ahren Innovation Capital, Pace Ventures, Foresight Group, and Portfolio Ventures participated in the round.

“Clinical research is broken by data silos,” said Dr Blaise Thomson, CEO and Co-founder of Bitfount. “We’ve built the missing infrastructure that lets organisations collaborate securely without the impossible choice between innovation and privacy. This investment moves us further towards our vision of unlocking the value of sensitive data for the benefit of humankind, and is a testament to the great work being done by the Bitfount team and to the support of our ecosystem partners.”

Founded in 2020, Bitfount aims to democratise federated AI infrastructure for clinical research, enabling secure collaboration without data sharing. Co-founded by Dr Blaise Thomson (former Chief Architect for Siri Understanding at Apple and head of Apple’s Cambridge office) and Dr Naaman Tammuz, the company’s platform connects healthcare providers, pharmaceutical companies, and CROs through privacy-preserving AI networks.

Healthcare providers and pharmaceutical companies can collaborate to improve clinical research without ever sharing raw patient data. The platform works across both electronic health records (EHR) and medical imaging data – a unique capability that the company says sets it apart from platforms limited to text-based analysis alone.

It streamlines trial lifecycles by accelerating patient recruitment, reducing screen failure rates, and enabling data-driven site feasibility assessments – all while maintaining complete data sovereignty. AI model development is similarly accelerated.

The funding comes as the UK government unveils unprecedented support for clinical research through its 10 Year Health Plan, announced in June 2025. The plan aims to slash commercial trial set-up times from 250 days to 150 days or less by March 2026 and position the UK as a global destination for clinical trials.

However, Bitfount says achieving these targets requires addressing fundamental infrastructure challenges – precisely what Bitfount’s federated AI platform aims to deliver by enabling secure collaboration without the data-sharing bottlenecks that have historically slowed UK clinical research.

“Data sharing for medical research is often hampered by privacy concerns, fragmented systems, and regulatory barriers. I have experienced this first-hand multiple times during high-profile collaborations with both industry partners and academic institutions,” said Professor Pearse Keane, Consultant Ophthalmologist at Moorfields Eye Hospital and Professor of Artificial Medical Intelligence at University College London. “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.“

The platform’s no-code desktop application can reportedly be deployed across any healthcare setting – from major hospital systems to small community clinics. This approach addresses the €86 billion AI for Healthcare and Life Sciences market, where data privacy concerns have limited AI adoption.

In a validation study conducted with Moorfields Eye Hospital for a trial in Dry Age-Related Macular Degeneration (Dry AMD), the team demonstrated a reduction in screen failure rates from 60% for traditional EHR-based searches alone, to just 14% when EHR search was combined with AI-based OCT image analysis, while still identifying over 600 eligible patients at that single hospital.

“We are excited to back Blaise Thomson, who previously successfully sold a Parkwalk portfolio company to Apple, and the rest of the formidable Bitfount team,” said Neil Cameron, Investment Director at Parkwalk. “Bitfount was conceived during Blaise’s time at Apple as a technology that could overcome many of the internal and external collaboration challenges faced by organisations with confidential data and security concerns. Bitfount’s initial focus on clinical trials is an area ideally suited to this type of AI application.”

The funding will accelerate product development and expand partnerships with commercial and academic AI model development organisations, particularly targeting pharmaceutical companies and clinical research organisations (CROs).

Bitfount plans to extend its platform capabilities across the entire clinical research lifecycle, from protocol design through regulatory approval.

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