Medical technology company Pulsenmore has secured a second major public grant in less than 30 days, with the Israel Innovation Authority approving 4.6 million shekels — approximately $1.27 million — to support the development of its SmartScan artificial intelligence program. The funding, disclosed in a PR Newswire release, marks a notable acceleration in institutional backing for the company’s efforts to bring autonomous AI-driven ultrasound analysis into mainstream clinical use. The announcement comes at a time when Israeli technology ventures are attracting significant capital, as seen in the recent Team8 cybersecurity fund closure of $365 million backed by institutional investors.
Pulsenmore, which is listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and trades on Nasdaq, develops home-use ultrasound devices designed to allow patients — primarily pregnant women — to conduct scans remotely under physician supervision. The SmartScan program extends that vision further, applying AI to automate the interpretation of ultrasound imagery, with the goal of reducing reliance on specialist sonographers and expanding access to diagnostic imaging in underserved or remote healthcare settings.
Two Grants, One Month: The Funding Sequence
The SmartScan grant follows a separate AI-related award Pulsenmore received just weeks earlier, also from the Israel Innovation Authority, underscoring a pattern of repeated government endorsement within a compressed timeframe. While the company did not disclose the precise value of the earlier grant in this announcement, the back-to-back approvals signal that its AI roadmap has cleared the authority’s technical and commercial viability thresholds on multiple fronts.
The Israel Innovation Authority operates as the government’s primary vehicle for funding research and development across technology sectors, typically providing non-dilutive grants that require recipients to meet specific development milestones. For Pulsenmore, securing two separate approvals in rapid succession is operationally significant: the combined funding allows the company to advance SmartScan development without immediately tapping equity markets or diluting existing shareholders, providing a degree of financial runway as it moves through the product development cycle.
SmartScan’s Clinical and Commercial Ambitions
The SmartScan program is designed to complement Pulsenmore’s existing remote ultrasound platform by embedding automated analysis directly into the device workflow. Rather than transmitting raw ultrasound images to a physician for manual review, SmartScan aims to use AI algorithms to flag clinically relevant findings in real time, potentially enabling faster clinical decisions and broadening the scope of conditions the platform can monitor. The company has indicated that the technology targets both obstetric and broader diagnostic applications, though obstetrics remains its primary commercial focus.
The commercial opportunity in AI-assisted remote diagnostics is substantial. Ultrasound is among the most widely used imaging modalities globally, yet access to trained sonographers remains uneven, particularly in rural and lower-income markets. By automating key elements of image interpretation, Pulsenmore is positioning SmartScan not only as a clinical quality improvement tool but as a market expansion mechanism — one that could make its home-use device viable in geographies where specialist oversight is logistically difficult to provide.
Pulsenmore has not disclosed a specific timeline for SmartScan’s regulatory submission or commercial launch. Development-stage AI medical devices typically require extensive clinical validation data before regulatory bodies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or the European Medicines Agency will approve their diagnostic claims. The grant funding is expected to support that data-generation phase, among other development activities. Investors will be watching closely for updates on trial progress and any indication of partnership discussions with healthcare systems or insurers that could accelerate the program’s path to revenue.