Wellumio, a Wellington-based medical device company developing a portable brain imaging device for stroke detection, said on July 24 it had reached the final close of an oversubscribed $9.75 million pre-series A round.

The funding will support clinical and product development, regulatory work, and hiring.

Nuance Connected Capital led the round. Other backers included Icehouse Ventures, NZ Growth Capital Partners’ Aspire Seed Fund, Pacific Channel, Booster, Cure Kids Ventures, angel groups Flying Kiwi and Enterprise Angels,

Additional investors participated through the New Zealand government’s Active Investor Plus programme and Snowball Effect, alongside new investors Bioshore Ventures and Jumpspace Ventures.

Founded in 2019, Wellumio raised NZ$4.25 million (US$2.47 million) in seed funding in 2023 and US$7.28 million in the first close of this pre-series A round in February 2026.

The company said its product, Axana is a 50kg, battery-powered scanner for point-of-care stroke assessment.

It is aimed at settings where magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is harder to use in acute care than computed tomography (CT), despite being more sensitive for ischemia.

Axana enrolled its first patient in an Australian feasibility study in February 2025.

Bedside portable MRI already has a precedent with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Hyperfine’s Swoop system, which was cleared in the US.

🔗 Source: Wellumio