Pictor Labs

Pictor Labs is a California-based artificial intelligence company founded in 2019 that works in digital pathology. Its technology performs computational virtual staining, converting unstained tissue, archived H&E slides and label-free images into virtual histological representations. Virtual stains are generated in minutes, and specimens are preserved for downstream analysis, including sequencing and spatial biology workflows.

The company sells four virtual staining products: ClearStain, for converting unstained tissue, archived H&E slides and label-free images; DeepStain, which generates virtual H&E, immunohistochemistry-like and special stains; ReStain, which produces virtual representations while preserving specimens; and RetroStain, which applies to archived and previously stained slides. These are marketed to laboratories and research teams working across the tissue lifecycle. Virtual stains are labelled for research use only and are not cleared or approved for standalone clinical diagnostic use.

The underlying models are trained on expertly curated, co-registered image pairs. The work has been cited in peer-reviewed and multi-site evaluation publications, including Nature Communications, Nature Biomedical Engineering and Light: Science & Applications. Technical domains span deep learning, image-to-image translation, computer vision, and cloud and on-premises deployment infrastructure, including NVIDIA-powered edge hardware.

Pictor Labs raised more than $18.8 million at launch and has since closed a $30 million Series B round. The company takes a partnership-driven approach, working with digital pathology platforms and academic medical centres, among them the University of Maryland Medical Center in the United States. Its products serve customers in healthcare and clinical laboratories, life sciences research, biopharma and spatial biology, and academic medical research.