Introduction
Butterfly Network is a medical imaging company founded in 2011 and headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts. Joseph DeVivo serves as chief executive officer. The company is best known for handheld ultrasound devices built around a semiconductor ultrasound chip — a design that replaces the piezoelectric crystal arrays of traditional cart-based systems with a single silicon chip, dramatically reducing size and cost. That form factor opened ultrasound to clinicians who previously could not justify a dedicated imaging suite, from emergency departments to primary care and global health settings.
On February 13, 2024, Butterfly Network announced the U.S. launch of the Butterfly iQ3, the latest generation of its handheld system. Brel uses the official product name iQ3 — not “i3,” a common CSV transcription error — throughout this profile.
Handheld ultrasound occupies a distinct niche in medical AI: algorithms assist image capture and measurement on a device the clinician holds, rather than analyzing studies after they reach a central PACS.
What the company does
Butterfly Network manufactures handheld ultrasound probes that connect to mobile devices, delivering imaging, measurement tools, and cloud-connected workflow features through companion software. The semiconductor architecture allows a single probe to cover multiple imaging modes that would traditionally require separate transducers. Butterfly’s software layer increasingly incorporates AI-assisted guidance — helping less experienced users acquire diagnostically adequate images — though the core product remains a physical imaging device rather than a pure software diagnostic.
Handheld ultrasound sits between consumer health gadgets and cart-based hospital systems: it requires FDA clearance, clinical training, and often subscription software, but it removes the capital cost and room footprint that limit traditional ultrasound deployment.
Who it serves
Butterfly sells to individual clinicians, hospital departments, and health systems that want point-of-care ultrasound without dedicated sonographer staffing for every study. Use cases span emergency medicine, anesthesia, critical care, musculoskeletal assessment, and obstetrics in appropriate settings. The iQ3 launch targeted the U.S. market specifically, reflecting Butterfly’s continued focus on FDA-cleared devices for American clinical environments while also serving international markets through prior product generations.
Joseph DeVivo’s leadership during the iQ3 generation reflects Butterfly’s emphasis on commercial hospital adoption rather than research-only deployments — a go-to-market choice that aligns with selling cleared devices through established medical device channels.
Company background
Butterfly Network was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts. Joseph DeVivo serves as chief executive officer, overseeing product generations from the original Butterfly iQ through the iQ+ and iQ3 launches. The company pioneered semiconductor-based ultrasound on a single chip, replacing traditional transducer arrays with a silicon design that enabled handheld form factors. Butterfly has navigated the commercial challenges common to hardware-plus-software medical device companies: proving clinical utility, managing reimbursement expectations, and iterating hardware while maintaining a software subscription layer.
Product and AI capabilities
The Butterfly iQ3, launched in the United States on February 13, 2024, represents Butterfly’s continued refinement of chip-based ultrasound with improved image quality and workflow features compared with prior generations. AI enters Butterfly’s product primarily through image acquisition assistance, automated measurements, and cloud-based analytics that help clinicians who are not full-time sonographers obtain usable studies. This is a different AI use case from diagnostic algorithms that classify pathology on CT or MRI — here the AI problem is often “help the user get a good scan” rather than “interpret the scan autonomously.”
With Joseph DeVivo as CEO, Butterfly has iterated through multiple hardware generations toward point-of-care ultrasound; the iQ3 is the U.S. cleared device announced in the February 2024 press release.
Key developments
2011: Butterfly Network founded. February 13, 2024: U.S. launch of Butterfly iQ3 announced via official press release. Joseph DeVivo continues as CEO. Product naming verified as iQ3, not i3.
The iQ3 launch followed prior Butterfly iQ and iQ+ generations, showing a steady hardware iteration cadence rather than a one-time device release — a pattern hospital buyers often prefer when evaluating point-of-care ultrasound vendors.
Why it matters
Butterfly Network matters because it changed the physical economics of ultrasound — making imaging portable and affordable enough for bedside use at scale. That shift has downstream implications for AI in healthcare: algorithms are only useful if images exist, and handheld ultrasound expands where images can be captured. Butterfly is also a useful contrast to cloud-only diagnostic AI companies in the same sector: it sells regulated hardware with recurring software, facing supply chain, FDA clearance, and capital equipment cycles that pure software vendors avoid.
The February 2024 iQ3 launch demonstrates continued hardware iteration in a category where software-only AI vendors sometimes underestimate the importance of probe physics, battery life, and image quality at the point of care.
Sector context
Butterfly Network sits in Brel’s AI in healthcare coverage under medical imaging and point-of-care devices, related to but distinct from Viz.ai (hospital care coordination) and cardiology analysis companies such as HeartFlow and Cleerly. Readers comparing AI deployment should note Butterfly’s edge-device model versus cloud-based imaging analysis pipelines.
Sources and references
Butterfly Network iQ3 launch press release (February 13, 2024) and company website.
- Butterfly Network — Butterfly iQ3 U.S. launch (butterflynetwork.com, February 13, 2024)
- Butterfly Network — Company website
Product name verified as iQ3, not i3. Reviewed July 10, 2026.