Pictor Labs, Inc.

Pictor Labs, Inc. is a California-based artificial intelligence company working in digital pathology. Founded in 2019, it develops computational virtual staining, a form of image-to-image translation that converts unstained tissue, archived H&E slides and label-free images into virtual histological representations. The company reports having raised more than $18.8m at launch and a $30m Series B round.

Its product suite comprises ClearStain, DeepStain, ReStain and RetroStain. The tools generate virtual H&E, immunohistochemistry-like and special stains across the tissue lifecycle, with virtual views produced in minutes per specimen. DeepStain models are trained on expertly curated, co-registered image pairs, while ReStain converts existing slides into alternative virtual stains while preserving specimens for downstream analysis such as sequencing and spatial biology. RetroStain is applied to archived slides and tissue samples.

The underlying technical work spans deep learning, computational imaging, cloud and on-premises deployment infrastructure, and edge AI on NVIDIA-powered hardware. Validation has appeared in peer-reviewed journals including Nature Communications, Nature Biomedical Engineering and Light: Science & Applications, and the company cites multi-site evaluations. Named partners and deployment sites include Proscia, Hamamatsu, University of Maryland Medical Center and PathPresenter, with deployments in the United States and globally via cloud-based infrastructure. The company serves clinical diagnostics and anatomic pathology laboratories, life sciences research, spatial biology, genomics, academic medical centres and biopharma.

Pictor Labs states that its virtual stains are labelled research use only and are not cleared or approved for standalone clinical diagnostic use.