Behind the Investment: Cleerly
What if we could live in a world without heart attacks?
Every 40 seconds, someone in the US suffers a heart attack. 50% of these people experienced little or no symptoms, but coronary artery disease—the deadliest type of cardiovascular disease and primary cause of heart attacks—was silently building beneath the surface undetected for years. The result is a crisis that claims more lives globally than any other cause and costs America $422 billion annually. But Cleerly believes heart attacks don’t have to be the leading cause of death. It’s estimated that 80% are preventable, so the question becomes: why aren’t we doing more to detect the risks early?
This staggering reality and apparent disconnect in the market prompted a thesis question. If we can proactively screen for common cancers, why can’t we do the same for coronary artery disease? We dove deep into the market landscape for heart health technology, speaking with industry experts and innovators to understand how software is transforming the cardiac care continuum.
Our work made it clear that we’re at the crux of two converging tailwinds. Trends like aging populations and rising chronic conditions are compounding the urgency to address this problem, while advancements in noninvasive procedures and expanded payer coverage are driving demand for new technology.
As a result, standards for diagnostic tests are changing, but the status quo still falls short. Nuclear stress tests are common but say nothing about the type or burden of plaque and often result in missed diagnoses from false negatives or unnecessary procedures from false positives. This is clinically inefficient and financially costly downstream. Cardiac catheterizations are accurate but invasive, making them undesirable for routine use. Noninvasive coronary CT scans (CCTAs) are rapidly becoming the preferred approach for the assessment of coronary artery disease, given that they are non-invasive, accurate, and lower cost. But there’s a catch: manual interpretations from complex CCTA images are difficult, even for the most experienced clinicians.
Enter Cleerly: the heart health company shifting the paradigm. After a patient undergoes a CCTA, Cleerly’s advanced AI analyzes the scan within minutes. Plaque buildup—its size, type, and risk level—is precisely quantified. For the first time, a doctor can see the patient’s risk clearly and potentially intervene quickly to help reduce the risk of heart attack. Cleerly’s transformative power is unlocking the full value of CCTA imaging enabling precise detection to help guide treatment of coronary artery disease. By combining advanced computational analysis with actionable insights, Cleerly helps empower clinicians to make better decisions that help reduce unnecessary procedures, hospitalizations, and, most importantly, lives lost. The ultimate vision is to create a new standard of care where heart disease screening becomes as routine and preventive as mammograms are for breast cancer, enabling early detection long before symptoms appear.
We first met Cleerly in 2020, during the early days of its clinical and commercial journey. At its helm is Dr. Jim Min, a world-renowned cardiology leader. While director of the Dalio Institute of Cardiovascular Imaging, Dr. Min pioneered a preventative care model that delivered extraordinary results for his patients. Cleerly is his mission to replicate this impact at scale.
From the outset, Cleerly stood apart. The platform’s rigorous clinical validation and proprietary IP formed the backbone of its innovation, while FDA clearance and payer reimbursement for symptomatic patients underscored its market readiness. Through its pioneering approach to plaque analysis, seamless integration into clinician workflows, and multi-tiered go-to-market approach, Cleerly has unlocked adoption across providers and payers alike. But the team’s vision doesn’t stop there. Their landmark TRANSFORM trial—a 7,500-patient study—is opening the door to a multi-billion-dollar asymptomatic patient screening market. This isn’t just a clinical trial; it’s a roadmap to redefining cardiac care, shifting the focus from reaction to prevention. And the timing couldn’t be better as CCTA adoption rises, payer coverage expands, and clinical evidence continues to mount. Cleerly isn’t just participating in this transformation. They’re leading it.
We are proud to lead Cleerly’s $106 million Series C extension, with participation from Battery Ventures and pre-existing investors, as the team works to create a world without heart attacks. Cleerly embodies Insight Partners’ computational diagnostics thesis: leveraging software, science, and empathy to deliver better outcomes at the point of care. We have a special team behind this thesis, including physicians, PhDs, and experts across regulatory, reimbursement, and software. At Insight we are impatient to change the status quo, but we are patient about doing it the right way: getting the right data, gathering deep clinical validation, and committing to the right clinical quality to truly supercharge clinicians.
Want to take control of your heart health? Click here to find a Cleerly scan provider near you.
