Florian Hillen

CEO and Founder VideaHealth

Last Reviewed: September 18, 2026

Executive Summary

Florian Hillen is founder and Chief Executive Officer of Videa, formerly VideaHealth, the MIT spinout whose artificial intelligence reads dental radiographs and flags disease that a human eye may miss. His route to it was unusually circuitous: medical training in Germany, including the first German State Examination in medicine, followed by two master’s degrees at MIT in electrical engineering and computer science and in technology and policy, and research at MIT’s Institute for Data, Systems and Society and at Harvard Business School on where machine learning could genuinely help clinicians. He surveyed radiology, dermatology, ophthalmology and biology before concluding that dentistry — high image volume, high diagnostic variability, low technology penetration — was the field where the technology would matter most. He wrote the first algorithm on 19 November 2018. The company has since raised more than 60 million dollars, cleared three product families through the FDA, and reached No. 75 on the 2026 Inc. 5000.

Career Highlights

• Founded VideaHealth out of an MIT research project called Delta V, which received 50,000 dollars of MIT funding; wrote the first algorithm for the minimum viable product on 19 November 2018.
• Raised more than 60 million dollars in total, including a 20 million dollar Series A led by Spark Capital and an oversubscribed 40 million dollar Series B in January 2025 led by Threshold Ventures, with Avenir, BAM Corner Point, Zetta Venture Partners and Pillar VC participating.
• Secured FDA 510(k) clearance for Videa Caries Assist, then for Videa Perio Assist in February 2023, and then for Videa Dental Assist in January 2024 — the last built from more than 30 AI algorithms covering the most common dental diseases.
• Videa ranked No. 75 on the 2026 Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies.
• Built distribution through Henry Schein One, Heartland Dental and dentalcorp, reaching large dental service organisations rather than selling practice by practice.
• Previously founded ninu, a digital healthtech startup, and worked at McKinsey & Company, Eko Devices and the Broad Institute.

Professional Journey

Hillen began in medicine, studying in Germany at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and the Technical University of Munich and completing the first German State Examination, alongside business studies. That clinical grounding is the reason his company’s product arguments are framed around diagnostic variability between practitioners rather than around model architecture.

He moved to MIT and took two master’s degrees — one in electrical engineering and computer science, one in technology and policy — a pairing that maps precisely onto the problem of deploying medical AI, where the constraint is as often regulatory and institutional as it is technical. His research at MIT’s Institute for Data, Systems and Society and at Harvard Business School sat at the intersection of engineering and social science, examining AI applications across radiology, dermatology, ophthalmology and biology. Before and around this he founded ninu, a digital healthtech startup, spent a summer at McKinsey & Company, interned at Eko Devices and worked as a research assistant at the Broad Institute.

Dentistry was the conclusion of that survey rather than the starting point. Dental practices generate enormous volumes of radiographs, diagnostic agreement between dentists on the same image is notoriously inconsistent, and the field had comparatively little algorithmic tooling. The MIT research project, Delta V, received 50,000 dollars from the institute in the summer after his graduation, and he wrote the first algorithm for the minimum viable product on 19 November 2018. Angel and venture funding followed.

The company’s trajectory since has been defined by regulatory clearance and distribution. FDA 510(k) clearance came first for caries detection, then in February 2023 for Videa Perio Assist, extending the system to early signs of periodontal disease, and in January 2024 for Videa Dental Assist, a platform of more than 30 algorithms that the company describes as addressing virtually all common dental disease. Rather than selling practice by practice, Hillen has partnered with Henry Schein One, Heartland Dental and dentalcorp, embedding the software where large dental service organisations already work. The 40 million dollar Series B in January 2025, led by Threshold Ventures and oversubscribed, funded that expansion, and Videa reached No. 75 on the 2026 Inc. 5000.

Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MS, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MS, Technology & Policy

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and Technical University of Munich

Medicine and business studies; completed the first German State Examination in medicine