AI for everyday clinical practice
Berlin-based x-cardiac has a new name and a bigger mission. The company, co-founded by BIFOLD Deputy Director Alexander Meyer and known for AI tools that predict complications after heart surgery, is now called Ascléa. At the same time, the company successfully closed a Series A financing round. In addition to the existing investor consortium led by IBB Ventures and several business angels, family office Quercus GmbH and venture capital firm Catalpa Ventures have invested in the innovative Berlin-based company. The proceeds will be used to further product development.
Where x-cardiac focused on heart surgery outcomes, Ascléa is widening its scope to AI for everyday clinical practice. Its new platform, called Clé, eanbles hospitals to run modern language models and agentic AI in a secure and sovereign manner, either within their own data centers or through European sovereign cloud providers. The idea is to plug existing clinical IT systems into Clé so relevant hospital data becomes usable for AI applications.
Chief Medical Officer Prof. Dr. Alexander Meyer: „The healthcare sector is facing significant challenges. AI can provide essential support in maintaining the performance and sustainability of our hospital system by taking over tasks that consume valuable staff resources without directly contributing to patient care. Clé opens up a wide range of opportunities for integrating AI into everyday clinical workflows.
Ascléa is a spin-off from the German Heart Center at Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, and its research is based in part on findings generated through joint projects with BIFOLD. Building on this successful foundation, Ascléa and BIFOLD intend to continue their collaboration in the future. It already has two CE-certified AI medical products on the market, and the fresh funding is meant to speed up what comes next.