From analog to actionable: Proscia is rewiring pathology
Proscia is rebuilding pathology for a digital world where insights are instant, care is collaborative, and research never stops.
For all of medicine’s advances in imaging, AI, and data infrastructure, pathology has remained a stubborn outlier. Most labs still operate on glass slides and microscopes, with diagnoses dependent on couriers, manual review, and siloed systems. It is the foundation of diagnostic medicine, and yet it has barely changed in decades.
This analog status quo is breaking under pressure. Demand for pathology services is rising across diagnostics and clinical trials. Meanwhile, the number of practicing pathologists is shrinking, and AI tools, though promising, remain trapped behind outdated workflows. As one industry executive said, “If AI is the race car, digital pathology is the racetrack. You can’t use one without the other.”
It’s no longer a question of whether pathology will go digital; it’s a question of when and who will power that transformation to unlock higher-quality care at increasingly lower costs.
Doubling down on digital pathology
At Insight, we’ve spent several years building conviction in digital pathology. Our investment in Pictor Labs, a company using AI to replace traditional chemical staining in pathology, reinforced our belief that the sector’s bottlenecks are infrastructural. We saw firsthand how pathologists were held back not by clinical capability, but by outdated tools, fragmented data, and a lack of a true digital backbone for the modern pathology lab.
As we explored the market further, our excitement sharpened around three core beliefs. First, digitization in pathology is inevitable, with biopharma and clinical labs moving steadily toward digital workflows. Second, the winning platform in this space would not be a bolt-on to existing hardware: it would be a vendor-neutral, software-first operating system. And third, the right solution would need to be as intuitive and elegant as it is powerful, enabling collaboration, AI integration, and data management without adding complexity to already overloaded teams.
Radiology showed us the playbook: independent software vendors like Sectra outcompeted most OEMs by focusing on neutrality, usability, and innovation. We believe the same model will emerge in pathology, and we wanted to find the platform capable of winning.
Proscia: Building the future of pathology
Enter Proscia and its operating system for digital pathology. Its platform serves as a centralized workspace where pathologists can store, view, annotate, and analyze high-resolution images quickly and precisely. Proscia is fully scanner-agnostic, integrating seamlessly with various imaging hardware, laboratory information systems, and third-party AI applications. Its infrastructure easily handles large files, loading them in seconds instead of minutes, even at an enterprise scale.
The impact is tangible. Proscia helps pathology teams work more efficiently across sites, enables faster workflows, and simplifies collaboration with external partners. Its interoperable infrastructure reduces bottlenecks that can delay diagnoses and gives labs the flexibility to scale as their needs grow. By digitizing the foundation of pathology, Proscia supports more efficient trials, more collaborative diagnostics, and lays the groundwork for better care and drug development. Customers share that it makes their work faster by seconds instead of minutes.
In a world where pathology is truly digital, feedback loops will accelerate, and the link between research and patient care will grow tighter. Like our investments in Viz, Iterative, and Cleerly, we are excited by a future where the healthcare operating system reinforces learning.
A relationship years in the making
We first met the Proscia team in 2020. Even then, it was clear they had a distinctive approach: rather than starting with AI or hardware, they focused on building a foundational platform that would enable everything else – workflow, interoperability, analytics – to work better. They had a long-term vision, but the market wasn’t quite ready. So we stayed close.
Over the years, we watched Proscia strategically grow, winning with enterprise biopharma customers and steadily expanding their value to clinical settings. We saw their platform evolve, their team and expertise deepen, and their conviction sharpen. And importantly, we saw the market catch up. Sometimes it’s time to build. Now it’s time to scale.
We believe both Proscia and the market are at an inflection point. Pathology is rapidly digitizing, AI adoption is accelerating, and the need for interoperable infrastructure has never been greater. With a strong technical foundation, growing customer base, and a leadership team that deeply understands the industry’s nuances, we believe Proscia is poised to become the connective tissue for digital pathology.
That’s why we’re thrilled to lead Proscia’s latest round. If you’re a biopharma company, diagnostics lab, or health system ready to embrace the future of pathology, we encourage you to learn more at proscia.com.
