Medical Devices Startups funded by Y Combinator (YC) 2024

If we've learned anything in the last few years it's that spending time with our friends and family is essential to our well-being and happiness. Unfortunately, loud and noisy places like weddings and family gatherings hinder human connection, especially for the hearing impaired. In fact, the biggest unmet need in the entire hearing healthcare industry is hearing in noisy places. AudioFocus helps patients hear in these environments by only enhancing voices nearby the patients and ignoring ones farther away. We do this using acoustics informed machine learning and custom microphone array design. Our goal is to increase the adoption rate of 37M US adults with hearing loss, only 8M use hearing aids today. Founded by Auditory Neuroscientist & AI expert and a Hearing Aid hardware design expert.

Chronic pelvic pain is a debilitating condition, that impacts over 15 million US women and costs over $39 Billion each year to manage. V-Flow medical has developed a trio of products that target the root cause of chronic pelvic pain, allowing millions of women to avoid opioid use and restart living a normal, pain free life. The V-Flow team has successfully scaled, multiple start-up medical device companies in various clinical disciplines with a combined exit value of over $4B. We have developed a broad IP portfolio covering both device design and method of application. A recent landscaping identified no competing IP for our indication of use. We have tested our beta prototypes and are initiating animal models ahead of a planned first in human investigation in Q1 2023. Following discussion with the NIH program advisors, we have been encouraged to apply for a phase 1 grant, call to action for the Heal initiative to find new diagnostic and non-drug treatments for chronic pelvic pain.

Auricle is a medical device company building a breakthrough neurostimulation implant to restore hearing in millions of patients who no longer benefit from hearing aids, get less than 60% on a word recognition test, but aren't prepared to make the jump to a cochlear implant. Our approach preserves remaining natural hearing through a reversible and less invasive surgery, addressing the key concerns that hold most patients back from getting a cochlear implant (currently the only treatment option for these patients). The company spun out of Stanford Biodesign having completed two acute human clinical studies demonstrating the approach will work. The team is now focused on developing their full implant system for their first clinical trial. Auricle addresses a currently unserved profile of hearing loss that affects a growing population of 3.5 million patients in the US and represents an immediately accessible $1.2B market opportunity with existing reimbursement.

38 million people suffer from heart rhythm disorders and are recommended to start medications that can save their lives, but require rigorous ECG monitoring to start and remain on these pills. SafeBeat Rx moves beyond diagnostics to guide these therapeutics, powered by our ML ECG software that integrates with existing FDA-cleared wearables to allow seamless physician approval of drug dosing, all from a mobile phone. We are a team of physicians, engineers, data scientists, and machine learning experts dedicated to using engineering to improve heart health.

We're building autonomous robots to make surgery more consistent, error free, and efficient. Nick is a 3x founder from medtech who co-founded a $1 billion company. Kartik is a 3x founder from autonomous vehicles who built and launched the world's first driverless truck. Surgical robotics companies are worth ~$200 billion total. AI will dominate the next generation of surgical robotics and we will be the first to build it. We're starting with a common urologic procedure that has by far the best outcomes but is not widely adopted due to technical difficulty.

The iSono Health platform combines automated 3D ultrasound technology with cloud computation and artificial intelligence to empower women and their physicians with early detection and monitoring of breast cancer. Our patented compact ultrasound scanner captures 3D images through automatic scanning of whole breast volume in 1 min. The device connects to a smartphone/tablet/laptop and is controlled by our mobile app. The data is transferred to a secure cloud for image processing and storage. Our machine learning algorithm uses acoustic biomarkers to identify abnormal masses. Our platform’s automated operation and software expands ultrasound use in point-of-care diagnostics as well as monitoring of breast health at home, walk-in and mobile clinics. iSono Health offers women and healthcare providers : Safety: No Radiation Actionable Feedback with AI Fast: 2min Scan Easy to Use

We are building high-precision implantable neuromodulation devices that can sense and stimulate neural activity in the brain with the goal of transforming the efficacy and adoption of deep brain stimulation (DBS), an existing FDA-approved therapy used to treat Parkinson’s, essential tremor and epilepsy.

TYBR is developing a hydrogel to limit internal scarring after surgery. The naturally derived material is applied to coat tendons at the end of surgery to improve healing outcomes for the millions Americans who undergo tendon or ligament surgery each year.

AesculaTech believes in building better lives through smart chemistry. We design custom smart materials for a range of biomedical, commercial, and industrial applications. Our platform technology, AesculaGel offers adaptive response to a wide range of stimuli and can be tailor-made for biocompatibility, material strength, and a range of other attributes. Founded by one of MIT's 35 under 35 Innovators, AesculaTech is the shared vision of scientists, engineers, and medical experts. Our cornerstone product, Humidifeye, is an ophthalmic platform to treat dry eye disease. Dry eye affects more than 25 million Americans and the global treatment market is projected higher than $6 Billion within the next decade. Our thermally responsive, form-fitting materials are suitable for sustained yet reversible occlusion across a range of treatment times. In contrast to existing technologies, our product will not extrude, or cause discomfort as it adapts to patients. Though Humidifeye is not yet FDA approved, expect to hear about it soon! In coordination with partners across several sectors, we have a variety of groundbreaking technologies in the works that live up to our vision. This work has already been recognized. AesculaTech was named a Rosenman Innovator, received a National Science Foundation I-Corps grant, was a finalist in the 2019 Octane High Tech Awards, and is a graduate of both the Y Combinator and TMCx accelerator programs. In short, Y-Combinator was only the beginning.

HelpWear is striving to better at-home healthcare by developing affordable and accessible products for patients all around the world. HelpWear is currently developing its first product, the HeartWatch, allowing for 24/7 at home heart monitoring with an embedded emergency contact system for furthered prevention and bettered treatment of heart related illness.

Quadrant Eye is on a mission to improve eyecare access and fight preventable blindness. We're building the next generation eye exam... inside the average American home. Our team wants to enable patients' best and most visually rich lives. To this end, we're looking for curious and nimble minds to help us develop the world's first fully online eye exam and ultimately deliver high-quality eyecare at scale. Some QE highlights: 🐝 We're a team of surgeons, scientists, venture partners, and hackers who mean business. 💸 Our backers include Y Combinator, Khosla Ventures, and the creator of Google Image Search. 🍥 We're a mission-driven company tackling an eye health market worth $USD137B. 🌟 Our core focus is currently the development of patentable deep tech, and our overall vision is to change eyecare for good.

Revolve is building the world’s only surgical robot designed for every operating room. Its simple yet powerful design makes it the only robot that can service the 1M+ abdominal surgeries performed outside of hospitals in the US every year. Revolve’s surgical robotics platform has been developed in collaboration with over 50 surgeons, resulting in a system that is just 1% of the size and cost of competitor devices.

Illuminant is helping surgeons perform safer and more efficient surgeries by projecting visual guidance directly on the patient’s skin. Using computer vision and low cost hardware, we can display patient-specific anatomical structures from preoperative medical images (e.g. CT scans), pre-operative annotations from planning, and real-time feedback, like needle depth and tool trajectory, as a surgeon operates. Our vision is to expand surgical navigation to underserved health systems and surgical specialties.

BBy's condensing device turns milk into a fine powder that spares the biome leaving it biologically and immunologically active. This allows hospitals to stop wasting precious nursing time defrosting milk for hours and milk wastage from discarding rules. Simply weigh the powder, add water, shake and serve. No more freezing, no more defrosting, only patient care. NICUs are time sensitive wards in the hospital, time is everything and yet nurses today continue to prepare frozen milk for infants in what's known as the milk shift. A shift where the nurse spends the day defrosting milk for the next shift of nurses. Our tech is now fully peer reviewed and published, yielding safe and reliable results in over 20 hospitals in the New York Tri-State. The company is headed by Vansh Langer MD, a physician (Windsor University, University of Chicago) and Blanca Aguilar Uscanga PhD, a Bioengineering/Food Science PhD (University of Guadalajara /Centro Universitario de Ciencias Exactas e Ingenierías (CUCEI)) team that has over 50 published works in the field between them and are experts in the science of infant nutrition. Vansh saw the immense need for a time critical solution in the NICU and helped solve the puzzle with Dra. Blanca and her team and decided to work together to: Nurture the Future.

Stealth-mode, rapidly scaling, venture-backed startup at the vanguard of automated robotic surgery revolution -- just closed our Series A round. We are improving access to dental care in underserved populations by combining novel imaging technology with AI and surgical robotics to automate surgery in the $452B dental industry. We are bringing a new imaging modality to dentistry which can see inside teeth and below the gingiva all without the need for x-rays. AI is used to diagnose decay and plan treatment. Automated robotics reduces the time for surgery down to one minute, reducing patient discomfort and saving time and reducing cost for the dentist. YC 2020, Winner of the Forsyth DenTech 2021 CareCaptial award

Our device catheter-based device is able to safely perform a targeted nerve ablation in the upper abdomen. Cardiologists are concerned about collateral tissue damage in ablation procedures - our probe not only targets a very specific area, but also confirms that it’s done correctly.

Makani Science is a medical device company based in Irvine, California. We have created the world's first wireless patch that can accurately and continuously monitor breathing. The company is co-founded by Dr. Michelle Khine and Dr. Michael Chu, two experts in the wearable monitoring space from the University of California, Irvine. The Makani Science system will collect unique breathing waveforms from patients in everyday environments to create the first large database of respiratory patterns associated with different diseases. Data will be collected through systems sold to our initial beachhead market, where we will help improve monitoring safety in patients being sedated for medical procedures. Our long-term goal is to combine machine learning with this database to identify and predict respiratory complications for different patient populations. We have a highly experienced team and will be FDA cleared in our beachhead market within a year.

There are 10 million dialysis and bypass surgeries per year, but half of them fail. VenoStent saves lives with a wrap that goes around blood vessels during surgery so they don't fail.

Forty million men in the US and over 500 million worldwide suffer from urinary obstruction related to benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). The majority of men will experience symptoms of this disease at some point in life. BPH, also known as prostate enlargement, leads to urinary straining, frequency, urgency, and sleep disruption. Despite the high prevalence and significant quality of life burden of BPH, established treatments are limited to drugs, which have limited effectiveness, and surgery, which carries a high risk of sexual side effects. The Zenflow Spring is a small implant delivered in the urologist's office in a simple procedure that provides quick and long-lasting symptom relief.

Archform is teeth aligner software startup that lets orthodontists create, design and 3D print aligners within their own offices. The idea is to provide orthodontists with a way to better compete against some direct-to-consumer teeth aligner startups and cut down on the cost of Invisalign.

NearWave makes a handheld imaging device that helps physicians select the right therapy for their breast cancer patients. This prevents patients from suffering through months of side effects caused by unsuccessful treatments.

We make devices that help cancer patients prevent the side effects of cancer treatment, including hair loss, neuropathy and infertility. Our first product, Lily, is a wearable cap that enables chemotherapy patients to prevent hair loss in a comfortable, portable way, while our second product, Lilac, is the world's first device to prevent the peripheral nerve damage caused by cancer treatment.

Vena Vitals makes a small sticker that monitors blood pressure continuously. We've shown that it works in the operating room and is as accurate as the best tools doctors have today, at a fraction of the cost. We're a team of health tech scientists with multiple past startups and exits, and we've built products that have scaled to over 2M users.

We develop surgical navigation and robotics tools to make minimally invasive surgeries easier, faster and more accessible.

We combined microfluidic chip technology and a reagent cartridge to create the first personal DNA synthesizer. Until now most life scientists had to rely on out-sourced DNA synthesis, causing stagnating research. Kilobaser empowers every life scientist to synthesize DNA on their benchtop.

Pre-clinical results published in the Journal of Neuro-Interventional Surgery. Technology presented at the World Live Neurovascular Conference. Technology selected as a top 3 finalist for Innovator of the Year by the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. Raised a Series A to fund commercialization (FDA Clearance, Health Canada, ISO 13485, First-in-man and early revenue).

Zeit Medical leverages the power of AI and wearable sensors to deliver peace of mind for those affected by stroke. Zeit’s smart headband immediately detects the onset of stroke and notifies 911. Each year more than 90% of the one million strokes in the US go untreated, resulting in life-long disability and exploding medical costs north of $100b. The lack of timely treatment is the result of delays in alerting the emergency services. More than 10 million Americans with an elevated stroke risk live with constant fear that a stroke may go unnoticed for hours, while they are asleep or alone. The company was founded by Orestis Vardoulis PhD a biomedical & mechanical engineer and expert in digital health (EPFL/Stanford) and Urs Naber MD a critical care physician (Dartmouth/Stanford). They have both seen the devastating effects of stroke in their families and came up with the idea of addressing this unmet clinical need during their Stanford Biodesign Innovation Fellowship.

Heart failure impacts millions worldwide and is associated with poor quality of life and high mortality rates. Because the heart cannot pump efficiently, fluids buildup around the body. Fluid overload is the main driver behind patient symptoms (shortness of breath, fatigue, chest pain, etc.) and hospitalizations. Our minimally invasive device leverages the body's innate fluid management system to offload trapped fluid and prevent subsequent rounds of buildup. The one-time procedure has sustained effect -- keeping patients healthier, happier, and out of the hospital.

Non-invasive brain stimulation is a widely-utilized, FDA cleared treatment used for patients diagnosed with depression, but is limited to a hospital setting due to the cost of the device, and complexity of treatment application. Our proprietary brain stimulation device allows patients to be treated directly from their home, with the same efficacy, and at a lower cost of treatment. Currently in FDA pivotal phase for Major Depressive Disorder, and Pilot phase for Alzheimer's and Parkinson diseases.

Building a standard-of-care medical device to freeze abnormal cells before they become cervical cancer, in any clinic, anywhere in the world, at 1/10 the cost. -- Ananya Health is building a portable cryoablation unit designed for every primary care clinic in the world. Our beachhead application is cervical cancer prevention -- even though cervical cancer is easy to screen for, 80% of clinics worldwide lack the infrastructure and specialized staff to treat at the earliest stages. Our platform technology allows nurses and lower level health workers to treat at the point of care for 1/10 the cost of traditional ablation, and is the only cryo device that will help us achieve the WHO target to eliminate cervical cancer in our lifetime.

Mable is a personalized migraine clinic using DNA to find and provide the right medication alongside continuous expert care Using our approach, patients have an 80% higher treatment satisfaction rate, have one extra day per week to enjoy their life and get 55% pain reduction.

Shift Labs makes medical devices that place technology and design on equal footing to create affordable solutions. We emphasize simplicity and create devices that serve the fastest growing healthcare markets in the world. We believe that every person in the world deserves quality healthcare -- whether they are receiving care in the home, in an outpatient infusion center, or in an emerging market. We're a for-profit company committed to doing well, and doing good. We believe Simple Saves Lives. ___ In true startup fashion, we have a strategy that emphasizes early revenue. So check out our first product DripAssist, a low-cost IV fluid monitor and alarm. Get precision monitoring of blood transfusions or fluid delivery at a fraction of the cost of an infusion pump. Purchase at http://www.shiftlabs.com/purchase-dripassist

Acquired by Penumbra (NYSE:PEN).

Allotrope Medical is a Houston-based medical device company founded and run by the surgeon that created the technology. Our platform stimulation technology gives physicians control over the natural movements of the urinary and digestive systems. This control over smooth muscle tissues allows the surgeon to identify hidden anatomic structures (ureters, sphincters and others), determine tissue health, and even assist in diagnosing disease states. The technology is delivered through the surgeon's existing instruments (which have remained unchanged in over 30 years) giving a completely new capability to the surgeon while maintaining seamless workflow integration. With an $600M (and growing) initial market, the technology is future-proof and is readily able to be integrated into the continued advancements in the surgical space.