Butterfly Network

Butterfly Network was founded in 2011 by Jonathan Rothberg to replace the piezoelectric crystals of conventional ultrasound with capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers on a semiconductor chip. Its first product, the Butterfly iQ, was cleared by the FDA in 2017 as a single hand-held probe covering the whole body, connected to a smartphone or tablet with cloud storage and tele-guidance software. The company listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2021 through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company. It sells to hospitals, medical schools and primary care and, with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, deployed probes across sub-Saharan Africa for maternal health, where the same devices serve cancer clinics for breast, thyroid and liver assessment.