MedTech Innovator last week announced the five finalists for its $500,000 competition.
The organization will award more than $500,000 in prizes to the finalists with first place taking $350,000 and the four remaining finalists taking $25,000.
Five finalists will have seven minutes to pitch their technologies to a panel of four judges. The audience will then vote in real-time following the presentation to select the winners.
Finalists include Flosonics Medical (Sudbury, Canada), Forest Devices (Pittsburgh), Koya (San Francisco), OncoRes Medical (Perth, Australia) and Venari Medical (Galway, Ireland).
Judges in this year’s competition include Christos Monovoukas, global leader of mergers and acquisitions/business development at Olympus; Jennifer Kozak, VP of new business development at Johnson & Johnson; Heather Walsh, director of external innovation at Baxter International and Sean Coyer, leader of digital health innovation and ventures at Gore Innovation Center.
“Each year, the audience at The MedTech Conference is faced with the difficult decision of choosing only one winner out of a group of impressive and transformative startups, and this year will be no exception,” CEO of MedTech Innovator Paul Grand said in a news release. “Even though only one company is voted the grand prize winner, all 50 companies in the 2019 cohort are on an important path to improving patient lives and the healthcare system as a whole through their innovative technologies.”
Over 800 applicants applied to the nonprofit startup accelerator’s MedTech Innovator 2019 competition. The organization along with senior leadership teams from its corporate partners and over 200 industry judges evaluated over 150 candidates in person out of the over 800 applicants from 34 countries and 45 states. The list was narrowed down to 50 companies that were selected to participate in the MedTech Innovator Showcase program and 25 of the companies received a place in the MedTech Innovator Accelerator program.
For the last six years, MedTech Innovator has reviewed more than 3,000 startups and 185 companies have gone on to raise more than $1 billion in funding to bring 37 products to market. The MedTech Innovator organization works with stakeholders in the medtech industry to help early and mid-stage startups grow.
MedTech Innovator will hold its 7th annual MedTech Innovator competition on Sept. 24 at the MedTech Conference in Boston.
Here are the five finalists and the technology they are touting.