Cascader, an AI spinout from Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, has closed a seed round led by Topcon Healthcare. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The company was formed through a partnership between Moorfields, Topcon Healthcare and UCL Ventures. It applies AI to oculomics, the reading of the eye for signs of wider disease, alongside the detection and management of eye conditions.
Money from the round is earmarked for pushing the first products toward market launch, growing the team and continuing development. The initial focus is macular disease, including age-related macular degeneration, with longer-term plans for a broader portfolio across the eye care pathway.
Cascader draws on more than a decade of research at Moorfields and the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, including deep learning applied to OCT imaging. It also leans on the INSIGHT Eye and Oculomics Health Data Research Hub, a collaboration with Google DeepMind that assembled 35 million ophthalmic images plus supporting diagnostic data.
Pearse Keane, a consultant ophthalmologist at Moorfields and a Cascader co-founder, said the team has spent more than a decade on this research. The goal now is translation, getting the technology out of studies and into routine clinical use, which he expects to deliver earlier diagnosis and earlier treatment for patients in the UK and beyond.
