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I believe it’s truthful to say that progress inventory Heartflow (NASDAQ:HTFL) is flying beneath the radar proper now. That’s comprehensible, as this medical expertise agency solely went public final summer season and nonetheless has a small $2.5bn market cap.
Nevertheless, Heartflow is experiencing fast progress because it revolutionises coronary heart illness analysis with its AI instruments. And as we all know, the market goes loopy for a lot of fast-growing AI companies in the present day.
Would possibly this develop into one of many subsequent huge AI winners?
Personalised AI-powered diagnostics
Within the US in the present day, there’s a coronary heart assault each 40 seconds. And heart problems is the primary reason behind dying globally.
Heartflow’s proprietary expertise may assist this fall considerably over the following decade through earlier and extra exact analysis. The US agency makes use of AI to create personalised 3D visualisations of a affected person’s coronary arteries from CT scans.
Put merely, its software program exhibits docs precisely how a lot a blockage is definitely limiting blood stream while not having an invasive coronary heart process. And its newer Plaque Evaluation product, which permits detailed coronary anatomy of every affected person, helps docs predict the chance of a coronary heart assault earlier than it occurs.
The corporate’s software program integrates seamlessly with present hospital IT programs and an growing variety of coronary heart scans have US insurance coverage protection.
How briskly is it rising?
Final 12 months, Heartflow’s income jumped 40% to $176m, with its put in base reaching 1,465 accounts within the US. Its US Plaque put in base grew to 489, which is encouraging.
Even higher, the corporate appears to have an nearly untapped world progress alternative. As a result of whereas worldwide and different income grew 24% final 12 months, it solely made up $15.4m of the whole (lower than 9%).
I might anticipate that to go larger, given the potential for adoption throughout Canada, Japan, and Europe.
It’s value noting that regardless of the corporate having excessive gross margins (76.8% final 12 months), it’s nonetheless loss-making. Final 12 months, the web loss was $116.8m, up from $96.4m the 12 months earlier than.
Heartflow ended 2025 with $280m in money, equivalents, and investments. But when it can’t cut back the losses, the corporate may have to boost more money in future.
For 2026, administration has guided for income of about $230m, which might symbolize progress of roughly 26%. This places the inventory on a dear forward-looking price-to-sales ratio of 11.
However taking a look at Wall Road forecasts, the agency isn’t anticipated to show worthwhile till at the very least 2028.
An AI winner within the making?
I do see so much to love right here. The corporate has 600+ patents worldwide and appears to have a protracted runway of progress, particularly internationally.
Nevertheless, figuring out whether or not Heartflow will develop into an AI winner is troublesome. When Anthropic launched a set of agentic AI toolkits again in January, its share value crashed 44% in a month.
One thing comparable may occur once more, even when the AI-powered software program enterprise isn’t disrupted.
That mentioned, when Baron Discovery Fund purchased extra Heartflow shares in Q1, it wrote: “It’s exhausting to know how Heartflow could be simply disintermediated, given the client belief it has constructed up, and its FDA authorized software program based mostly on important scientific trials and thousands and thousands of real-world CT scan analyses.”
I do suppose that is an fascinating high-risk, high-reward progress inventory to have a look at. So I’ve popped it on my watchlist.
