The archive · Health & Care · Product decision · 2025–2026
Eyedentity's AI bet: opticians catch uveal melanoma before specialists
Stockholm medtech founded 2025 reads routine eye photos with AI to triage eye cancer; closed an oversubscribed €1.3M round in August 2026.
Eyedentity
What the business is
Eyedentity builds an AI diagnostics platform that analyzes fundus images taken during routine eye examinations to flag suspicious lesions and advise opticians whether to refer a patient to specialist care; its first application targets uveal melanoma.
Starting capital：€1.3M (SEK 15M) oversubscribed first round, led by Norrsken Launcher with Karolinska Institutet Innovation and a group of angel investors, announced 2026-08-20.
How it started
Eyedentity was founded in 2025 in Stockholm by Gustav Stålhammar, an ocular oncologist at St. Erik Eye Hospital and professor at Karolinska Institutet, and Mats Holmström, a machine learning engineer who previously worked on automating cancer care at RaySearch Laboratories. They saw that uveal melanoma, the most common primary intraocular cancer in adults, can be hard to distinguish from benign lesions at an early stage - while opticians already image many eyes.
What happened
The startup joined the Karolinska Institutet Innovation Incubator and pitched at its InvestorDay, where it first connected with Norrsken Launcher. In August 2026 it closed an oversubscribed €1.3M round led by Norrsken Launcher, with Karolinska Institutet Innovation and angels participating, and is testing its platform in a live pilot with Synologen, a network of independent opticians in Sweden.
How it ended up
Live and pre-commercial as of 2026-09-02: Eyedentity is running its Synologen pilot and using the round to pursue regulatory approval for its first product, extend the platform to conditions such as diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma, and prepare for Nordic commercialization before expanding across Europe and the US.
Background
Eyedentity is a Stockholm-based medtech startup founded in 2025 to detect serious eye disease from fundus images already taken during routine eye examinations. Its first product targets uveal melanoma, the most common primary intraocular cancer in adults, which is rare but potentially life-threatening and can resemble benign lesions early on.
The company's wedge is distribution through opticians: no new imaging equipment or separate screening process is needed, because the platform analyzes images that routine visits already produce and gives the optician decision support on whether to refer the patient to a specialist. Eyedentity says this can reduce false-positive referrals by 90%, easing pressure on specialist eye-care services.
The founders are Gustav Stålhammar, an ocular oncologist at St. Erik Eye Hospital and professor at Karolinska Institutet, and Mats Holmström, a machine learning engineer who worked on automating cancer care at RaySearch Laboratories. The startup went through the Karolinska Institutet Innovation Incubator, pitched at its InvestorDay, and in August 2026 closed an oversubscribed €1.3M (SEK 15M) first round led by Norrsken Launcher.
Eyedentity is running a live pilot with Synologen, a Swedish network of independent opticians, and plans to use the funding to pursue regulatory approval, add conditions such as diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma, and move from Nordic commercialization toward Europe and the US.
What has to be true
- Fundus images are already captured in volume at opticians, so the company avoided the cost and friction of building a separate screening infrastructure.
- Uveal melanoma's early-stage resemblance to benign lesions makes triage the bottleneck, and AI is a natural fit for comparing large numbers of images against expert-labelled cases.
- Placing the product with opticians rather than hospitals addresses a growing patient flow - people seeking help for vision problems and dry eyes - where suspicious findings appear first.
- An oversubscribed first round led by impact-focused Norrsken Launcher, after a pitch at Karolinska's InvestorDay, validated the funnel from academic incubator to commercial capital.
What can be applied
A rare-disease product can still have a mass-market wedge: route screening through the opticians who already photograph eyes, making detection a byproduct of existing visits.
Aftermath
As of 2026-09-02 Eyedentity is a pre-revenue company with a live pilot at Synologen, no regulatory clearance yet for its first diagnostic module, and no announced later round. The near-term milestones are full regulatory approval, integration with electronic medical record systems so image analysis runs automatically, and expansion of the platform beyond uveal melanoma to diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma before moving from the Nordics into Europe and the US.
Sources
- Stockholm-based Eyedentity secures €1.3 million to detect deadly eye cancer earlier with AI
- Eyedentity Raises €1.3M in Funding
- Eyedentity Secures €1.3M to Detect Eye Cancer via AI
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