Digital health startup Behold.ai enters administration
- 28 January 2025

- British health AI start-up Behold.ai has entered administration after failing to win any contracts under the government’s AI Diagnostic Fund
- The firm supplies lung cancer AI systems to several NHS organisations
- Behold.ai owner and chief executive Simon Rasalingham sent a letter to Lord Ara Darzi calling for an inquiry into the procurement process for the fund
UK-based digital health start-up Behold.ai has entered administration after failing to win any contracts under the government’s AI Diagnostic Fund.
Behold.ai supplies lung cancer AI systems to several NHS organisations, including Somerset NHS Foundation Trust which began a pilot in 2022 into the use of the firm’s clinical analysis software algorithm to detect lung cancer from x-rays faster.
Simon Rasalingham, owner and chief executive at Behold.ai, told Digital Health News that he has requested an inquiry into the £21 million AI Diagnostic fund, which launched in June 2023 help roll out AI tools for the diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer. The funding was allocated to 64 NHS trusts in England in November 2023.
He said that firms from overseas had benefited from the fund, including qure.ai, which has offices in the US, India and the UK.
“That is our taxpayers’ money being used to compete against British AI companies like Behold,” Rasalingham said.
His criticism follows the launch of the government’s AI Action Plan on 14 January 2025, which prime minister Sir Keir Starmer said would “make our country an AI superpower”.
Rasalingham previously spoke to The Times in August 2024, about how Behold.ai’s technology helped detect his wife, Shaila Rasalingham’s lung cancer.
He told Digital Health News: “My wife’s lung cancer has relapsed and this is a very difficult time for me and my family together with the failure of Behold.ai.
“If my technology was available at her local hospital a relapse would probably have been a lower probability event.”
Rasalingham wrote to Lord Ara Darzi, director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College and co-chair of the 10 year health plan working committee, calling for an inquiry into the procurement process for the AI Diagnostic Fund.
In the email, seen by Digital Health News, he said: “Behold.ai, was the only British AI company in the field, which was proven, regulated and was the only commercially deployed AI algorithm in the NHS; to help speed up lung cancer diagnosis; we did not win a single contract as part of the AI Diagnostic Fund.
“Taxpayers’ money was used to fund overseas competition, to promote and help them rollout their supposedly, similar AI solutions, based on our pioneering work.”
He added: “There is a significant national security risk to our data and an inquiry should focus on how the AI Diagnostic Fund was procured, by what design was an evaluation constructed, that seems to exclude British companies.”
Responding to the email, Lord Darzi acknowledged Behold.ai’s efforts in “pioneering AI within the NHS”.
“I hope we will continue to learn from your experience to strengthen the NHS, stimulate innovation, and maintain our global leadership in healthcare technology,” Lord Darzi said.
A spokesperson for NHS England said: “Patients are benefitting from the latest technology to help speed up diagnosis through the NHS AI Diagnostics Fund, with contracts being awarded by local organisations in line with national guidance on procurement.”
Behold.ai was set up by the founders of teleradiology firm Medica and won the Prix Galien International in 2024 for ‘best digital health software’.
Digital Health News contacted Qure.ai for comment, but had not received a response at the time of publication.