AI startup developing stroke detection technology seeks court protection
CardioKol says it ran out of funding before it could launch commercial pilots, despite building patented technology and a large clinical database.
Israeli startup CardioKol, which developed artificial intelligence technology that analyzes routine phone conversations to detect cardiac arrhythmias and help prevent strokes among older adults, has filed an application with the Central District Court to initiate insolvency proceedings.
Founded in 2017, the digital health company developed a system that operates transparently in the background during phone calls and is designed to identify the early onset of atrial fibrillation, a condition whose early detection could help prevent more than 70% of related medical complications. As part of its platform, CardioKol also developed a smartphone application for long-term monitoring, built an intellectual property portfolio that includes granted patents in the United States, Japan and Israel, and created a large clinical database containing hundreds of thousands of speech recordings synchronized with ECG signals, collected in collaboration with leading hospitals.
Despite the technology's medical promise, the company entered a financial crisis after failing to raise the funding it needed in 2023 to launch commercial pilot projects that had been agreed with strategic customers in Europe and Asia. The lack of financing forced CardioKol to gradually scale back its operations, and by the end of 2024 most of its employees and senior management had either been laid off or resigned.
The application, filed by attorney Shay Bar-Nir of Piron & Co., states that since its founding the company has accumulated losses of more than NIS 19 million ($6.3M). As of the end of 2024, its current liabilities totaled approximately NIS 379,000.
The filing also notes a contingent liability to the Israel Innovation Authority of approximately $1.89 million related to grants the company received. In recent months, CardioKoll has financed its remaining operations through loans provided by several of its founders, primarily its largest shareholder, French healthcare investment fund Kamet Ventures, which extended financing to help preserve the company's assets.
