NEW YORK, Oct. 6, 2025 — OraLiva, Inc., an AI precision diagnostics company, today announced the close of a $2.0 million oversubscribed Seed financing round. The round was led by angel Dr. Preetpal Sidhu, with participation from DCVC, RTP Angel Fund, and the NYU Innovation Venture Fund.
The equity financing complements $3.5 million in non-dilutive funding recently awarded to OraLiva in 2025, including:
- $1.9M NIH/NIDCR grant to advance our oral cancer test towards point-of-care application
- $1.2M NSF grant to add diagnostic capabilities for bladder and anal cancers, and expand OraLiva’s platform to the point-of-care
- $400K NIH/NCI grant to extend OraLiva’s platform into gynecological services with point-of-care testing for cervical cancer
Addressing a Critical Gap in Oral Cancer Care
Oral cancer remains one of the most expensive cancers to treat, costing an estimated $112,000 per patient, while survival rates have seen little improvement over the past five decades. The lack of effective early detection tools means that most cases are diagnosed late, when treatment is less effective and outcomes are poor. OraLiva’s solution directly addresses this growing issue by empowering dental providers with a reliable non-invasive adjunctive test that enables earlier, more accurate detection at the point of care.
Transforming Oral Cancer Detection
OraLiva’s test integrates advanced AI diagnostic models with a proprietary microfluidic device, delivering accurate, non-invasive and actionable analysis of suspicious oral lesions.
The technology builds on more than a decade of research, including the largest study of oral lesions ever completed which generated a dataset of 13 million cellular images and 40 terabytes of data. In collaboration with leading oral medicine and pathology experts, OraLiva also established a novel four-stage adjudication process to define benign, mild, moderate, and severe dysplasia. The result is a test with 97% accuracy, 94% sensitivity, and 92% specificity, capable of discriminating across phases of dysplasia with unprecedented precision.
OraLiva is launching its first test in partnership with Delta Dental of Michigan and North Carolina, long-standing supporters of the research behind the technology. As part of this collaboration, Delta Dental of Michigan will back a four-state pilot program (Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, and Indiana) with dentists, oral surgeons and periodontists. In year two, the pilot is expected to expand to additional affiliated states, including Arkansas, Kentucky, New Mexico, and Tennessee, effectively doubling OraLiva’s potential reach.
Use of Proceeds
Proceeds from the Seed round will support:
- Commercial launch of OraLiva’s oral cancer test in Q4 2025
- Opening of its CLIA-certified laboratory in Durham, NC
- Transfer learning of its AI models to additional indications, including anal, bladder, and cervical cancers
- Advancement of its pathway to FDA clearance as a point-of-care device
A New Mode for Diagnostics
“OraLiva is at the forefront of a new era in diagnostics,” said Dr. John McDevitt, Founder and Chief Science Officer. “By combining a decade of work in artificial intelligence and our own proprietary high-precision microfluidics and engineering with one of the world’s largest dysplastic lesion datasets, we are redefining how cancers can be detected earlier, diagnosed more accurately, and treated more effectively.”
About OraLiva
OraLiva, Inc. is an AI precision diagnostics company pioneering AI-based cytology and microfluidics for epithelial cancers. Founded out of the NYU School of Dentistry and the McDevitt Lab, OraLiva’s platform is designed to improve accuracy, speed, and accessibility of cancer diagnostics at the point of care.
For more information, visit www.oraliva.com.
