The scanner currently uses 40 of Butterfly Network’s Ultrasound-on-Chip imaging modules under a co-development agreement.
- Midjourney unveiled Midjourney Medical and a new whole-body scanner to make advanced imaging faster, cheaper and more accessible.
- Future versions are expected to incorporate significantly more imaging modules as the platform scales.
- Butterfly has previously said the partnership could generate up to $74 million in payments over five years.
Shares of Butterfly Network (BFLY) logged their best day ever on Thursday after the company revealed that its technology is powering Midjourney’s ambitious new healthcare venture, a full-body imaging platform that has already drawn praise from famed investor Michael Burry.
BFLY stock surged 56% on Thursday, with shares coming off their strongest week ever and remaining on track for their best year to date. BFLY was also up more than 2% in overnight trading heading into Monday.
Midjourney Unveils Scanner Built On Butterfly Tech
“I am a fan of Midjourney, but wow. Read until the end,” Burry said on X, referring to the company’s latest healthcare announcement. “This is indeed how medicine and health care can be reimagined in this new paradigm of untold processing power.”
Midjourney, best known for its AI image-generation platform, unveiled Midjourney Medical and a new whole-body scanner that makes advanced health imaging faster, cheaper and more accessible. Butterfly said the current Midjourney Scanner prototype uses 40 of its proprietary Ultrasound-on-Chip imaging modules under a co-development agreement.
The company noted that future versions are expected to incorporate substantially more imaging modules as the platform scales. Importantly, Butterfly previously said that the partnership could generate up to $74 million in payments over five years.
“We’re proud to support Midjourney’s mission to democratize access to personal imaging data,” CEO Joseph DeVivo said, adding that the roadmap unveiled by Midjourney represents a “potentially meaningful commercial opportunity” for Butterfly.
Midjourney Targets MRI-Like Scans In 60 Seconds
Midjourney’s scanner aims to deliver detailed whole-body images using ultrasound rather than radiation or magnetic fields. The company says users would step into a pool of warm water and pass through a ring containing roughly 500,000 ultrasonic sensors, generating terabytes of imaging data that are processed using AI and high-performance computing. The goal is a scan lasting about 60 seconds, producing MRI-like body maps at a fraction of the cost and with far greater accessibility.
Midjourney also plans to deploy the tech through dedicated wellness centers called Midjourney Spas. The first location is expected to open in San Francisco in 2027, combining traditional spa amenities with routine body scanning. “We’ve dreamed of something as powerful as MRI, and as casual as a trip to the spa,” Midjourney founder David Holz said.
The company plans to launch a research spa in 2027, expand to additional cities in 2028 and ultimately deploy more advanced scanner generations built on custom silicon. By 2031, Midjourney is looking to operate over 50,000 scanners worldwide with the capacity to perform up to one billion scans per month. For comparison, 100 million to 150 million MRI scans are performed worldwide each year, according to Par Kragsterman, CTO at Collective Minds Radiology, a medical imaging research platform. If achieved, Midjourney’s target capacity would be 80x to 120x larger than today’s global MRI market.
How Do Retail Traders Feel About BFLY?
On Stocktwits, retail sentiment for BFLY jumped to ‘extremely bullish’ from ‘bullish’ levels a week ago amid a 44% jump in 24-hour message volumes.
One user said, “Global exposure will continue to bring BFLY into the spotlight. This is just the early stages of what the next great growth stock might look like. Yes, the big move on Thursday will bring the skeptics out of their bear caves and the price action of the stock will reflect the tug-o-war between the bulls and bears.”
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Another user said, “This is a very strategic marketing tool by DeVivo to get major exposure for BFLY to new investors and customers and have the world learn about Butterfly chip technology. Apollo [Butterfly’s sixth-gen AI chip] in 2029 will be a game changer.”
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BFLY stock has surged 312% over the past year.
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