All Access

Health Tech Deals

Health Tech Deals Alerts

Alert

Standard

Health Tech Deals Thought Bubble

Thought Bubble

mustard

BFD Expert Voices - Health Tech Deals

BFD Expert Voices

topics

politics-policy

epstein-files

donald-trump

2026-midterm-elections

immigration

behind-the-curtain

race-and-equity

technology

privacy-tech-regulation

automation-and-ai

tiktok-news

big-tech

social-media

cybersecurity

economy

social-security

inflation

tariffs

federal-reserve

jobs

transportation

business

stock-market-news

retail-news

crypto

media

elon-musk

dealmaking

health

rfk-jr

drug-prices

axios-explains-abortion

public-health

world

israel

axios-explains-ukraine

iran

russia

china

energy-climate

nuclear-energy

climate-energy-policy

climate-change

extreme-weather

alternative-energy

electric-vehicles

science

emerging-tech

biomedicine

newsletters

pittsburgh

atlanta

san-diego

charlotte

boulder

washington-dc

kansas-city

dallas

denver

detroit

des-moines

austin

boston

chicago

cleveland

columbus

houston

indianapolis

miami

nashville

new-orleans

nw-arkansas

philadelphia

phoenix

portland

richmond

salt-lake-city

san-antonio

san-francisco

seattle

tampa-bay

twin-cities

raleigh

huntsville

axios-local

axios-pro

axios-live

the-axios-show

Centaur Labs, a health data annotation startup, raised a $16 million Series B led by SignalFire, CEO Erik Duhaime tells Axios exclusively.

Why it matters: Poor data labeling is a major barrier to broader health care AI adoption.

How it works: Centaur Labs has a network of "tens of thousands" of subject matter experts working to accurately tag a variety of health data for training, evaluation and monitoring.

For example, Boston-based Centaur Labs helped digital stethoscope maker Eko develop its FDA-approved heart murmur algorithm, Duhaime says. Centaur's network worked to accurately tag each audio clip of heart sounds to form the basis of the algorithm.

Centaur Labs works with about 100 health systems, pharmaceutical companies, medical device makers and large technology companies.

Experts compete for financial incentives to be the best annotators on Centaur's mobile app, DiagnosUs.

Zoom in: New investors Samsung Next and Alumni Ventures joined existing backers Matrix, Accel, Susa and Y Combinator on the Series B.

Centaur Labs is launching an on-demand data labeling product, able to serve urgent cases in hours instead of weeks.

Proceeds will help the company, which is not yet profitable, add to its 25-person team. SignalFire partner Yuanling Yuan says she wants to see Centaur Labs build a proper sales team with the funding.

"So much of the revenue that they've made today — and it's not a small amount; call it like $4 million this calendar year — it's mostly founder-led sales," Yuan says.

What they're saying: "The way that developers solve (accurate annotation) in other industries is essentially you've got large armies of predominantly low-wage, low-skilled workers that are tagging data sets for AI developers," says Duhaime.

"Health care is different, because in order to tag data accurately, you often need subject matter expertise," he adds.

For SignalFire, Centaur Labs' "gamification platform and their crowdsourcing technology at the platform level was, we thought, a big differentiator in this market," says Yuan.

What we're watching: Centaur Labs partners with a few data brokers that could represent potential eventual acquisition targets, Duhaime says, though he stresses there are no immediate plans.

Centaur Labs raises $16M Series B for health data labeling

Illustration of a stethoscope tied in knots around binary numbers.

Health tech deals

Centaur Labs, a health <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="data annotation" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2019/03/25/ai-data-labeling-billion-dollar-market" data-vars-content-id="4ecf70d6-11c0-46ff-9d7e-5ccadfb1c9d4" data-vars-headline="Centaur Labs raises $16M Series B for health data labeling" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2019/03/25/ai-data-labeling-billion-dollar-market" target="_self">data annotation</a> startup, raised a $16 million Series B led by SignalFire, CEO Erik Duhaime tells Axios exclusively.Why it matters: Poor data labeling is a <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="major barrier" data-vars-click-url="https://khalpey-ai.com/medical-mayhem-how-poor-data-labeling-is-sabotaging-ai-in-healthcare/" data-vars-content-id="4ecf70d6-11c0-46ff-9d7e-5ccadfb1c9d4" data-vars-headline="Centaur Labs raises $16M Series B for health data labeling" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://khalpey-ai.com/medical-mayhem-how-poor-data-labeling-is-sabotaging-ai-in-healthcare/" target="_blank">major barrier</a> to broader health care AI adoption.

Centaur Labs raises $16M Series B for health data labeling

What to read next