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VC Files: Founder edition with Emi Gal
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About 18 million people are diagnosed with cancer every year, and over half will be diagnosed late.
Screening and prevention have saved millions of lives, yet most cancer types still lack standardized, widely available early detection methods. Ezra is at the forefront of expanding access.
Our next guest: Emi Gal, founder of Ezra
After selling his first company Brainient to Teads in 2016, Emi could have retired. Instead, losing his mother to undiagnosed colon cancer drove him to spend two years researching solutions for early cancer detection. He landed on AI-enhanced MRI as the only scalable approach.
Ezra became the first company globally to deploy FDA-cleared AI across the entire imaging workflow - from scan quality to diagnosis to patient reports. They reduced full-body MRI time from 60 min to 22 min and costs from $1,500 to $499, making comprehensive cancer screening accessible for the first time.
Ezra raised $44M from FirstMark Capital and angels like Vlad Tenev and Jeff Raider before its 2025 acquisition by Function Health, a high-profile consumer health platform backed by Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, and Kevin Hart.
Now part of Function Health, Ezra offers FDA-cleared whole-body scans that detect cancer and over 500 conditions—without radiation or contrast
Emi has done zero-to-one and the one-to-scale—twice. As full-body MRI moves from curiosity to consumer baseline, Ezra brings the speed, affordability, and infrastructure needed to scale it.
We’ll talk about
What it takes to build a healthtech product from scratch
Why he chose not to own MRI machines and how that unlocked national scale
The Ezra acquisition and what life looks like after the exit
The biggest mistakes, pivots, and hard truths behind the Ezra story and more
Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as an offer to buy or sell securities. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Investing involves risks, including the risk of loss. Consult with your financial advisor before making investment decisions.
