The companies awarded were selected across 13 categories by an unmatched team of expert judges in the healthcare and VC industries, including Vinod Khosla (Khosla Ventures), Ursheet Parikh (Mayfield Fund), Blake Wu (NEA), Michael Roizen (Cleveland Clinic), Michael Blum, MD (UCSF), Michael Lesh, MD (UCSF) and Dan Burnett, MD (Theranova) among others. The winners were chosen from more than 500 companies.

Based in San Francisco, Launchpad Studio is a fully tailored product development acceleration program that matches top ML startups and experts from Silicon Valley with the best of Google - its people, network, and advanced technologies - to help accelerate applied ML and AI innovation. The program's mandate is to support the growth of the ML ecosystem, and to develop product methodologies for ML.

Nanowear received the award for its congestive heart failure (CHF) monitoring device called SimpleSense. It is a non-invasive undergarment solution worn by patients of a CHF-related hospitalization event which captures and transmits CHF data to a cloud-based environment, providing access and updates to medical professionals for assessment of patient health and progress. The award was presented Jan. 8 at the StartUp Health Festival during the 36th annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco.

Launched in summer of 2017, the Philips Wearables Challenge called for novel solutions to predict early signs of patient deterioration and prevent hospital readmission. Forty teams from across the country submitted their cutting edge technologies and systems to facilitate early, appropriate interventions.

“Nanowear represents what is so great about the medical technology industry: a strong entrepreneurial spirit combined with next-generation innovation with the goal of improving patient care. With receipt of this award, Nanowear is one step closer to bringing their technology to patients and their physicians, and we are excited to have helped move this process forward.”

— Ashley Wittorf, executive director, AdvaMed Accel

The Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed), is a trade association that leads the effort to advance medical technology in order to achieve healthier lives and healthier economies around the world. AdvaMed’s membership has reached over 400 members and more than 80 employees with a global presence in countries including Europe, India, China, Brazil, and Japan.

“Frost & Sullivan research shows that Nanowear’s innovative textile captures and transmits millions of skin-based signals to unlock advanced biometric insights in real time. The result offers providers a rich data stream with which to manage complex disease states; at the same, patients receive a comfortable and discreet means of tracking their health. An additional and unique selling point is Nanowear’s full-stack software development and analytics / alert algorithm that exceeds industry norms to provide advanced sensor modalities and raw data analysis ... Overall, Nanowear is a shining star in the medtech start-up arena.”

— Frost & Sullivan: Visionary Innovation Leader Award for Remote Diagnostic Monitoring

Pinpointing their customers’ pain points is typically the starting point for startups. But just as imperative for many of the 50 companies pitching in ten categories during the tenth annual Dash-presented SXSW Accelerator Pitch Event is making a positive social impact within global communities.

StartX, a non-profit startup community of more than 1,600 Stanford faculty and alumni founders, launched StartX Med Alliance of Remote and Telehealth (SMART) Initiative and the mobilization of its digital health medical companies to support healthcare providers in their delivery of telehealth, remote monitoring, remote diagnostics, and virtual care services. The consortium collaborates on partnerships with healthcare providers and government agencies to help them respond to the massive shifts in patient care delivery caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Frost & Sullivan lauds the huge disruptive potential of Nanowear’s innovation and believes that SimpleSense™ can revolutionize the remote diagnostic and monitoring industry with its ability to capture and analyze large amounts of high-quality, clinical grade patient data…In addition to post-surgical recovery and outpatient cardiology, Frost & Sullivan notes that Nanowear’s core technology and cloth-based nanosensors offer infinite application possibilities in wearable remote health monitoring, including hypertension, worsening heart failure, sleep apnea, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease…The multitude of potential applications of Nanowear’s solution is noteworthy.”

– Frost & Sullivan

HeartX is a cardiovascular-focused healthcare accelerator, and joint venture of HealthTech Arkansas and MedAxiom. It facilitates hospital pilot projects and clinical trials for accomplished, early-stage companies bringing new cardiovascular innovations to market. Together, HealthTech Arkansas and MedAxiom use their respective expertise to bring the latest cardiovascular healthcare innovations to the patients who need them most.

The American College of Cardiology (ACC) a nonprofit medical association with over 56,000 members worldwide spanning the entire cardiovascular team, serves as the professional home for clinicians and researchers seeking the latest science, research, and education in the cardiology space. The organization’s innovation section hosts an annual pitch challenge, one focused on early-stage companies, and a second hosted in partnership with the National Health, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Small Business Innovation Research program.

The Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed), trade association launched its new division: Digital Health Tech. The division represents digital medical technology companies and promotes the critical role of data and digital MedTech in transforming healthcare. The group acts as a thought leader and convener for the industry and focuses on four core policy areas: regulation, payment and health care delivery, data stewardship and privacy, and cybersecurity.

AFFOA (Advanced Functional Fabrics of America) is a trade association with a mission to rekindle the domestic textiles industry by leading a nationwide enterprise for advanced fiber & fabric technology development and manufacturing, enabling revolutionary system capabilities for national security and commercial markets.

AFFOA’s Advanced Functional Fabrics Summit of 2024 was hosted in Boston, Massachusetts and included a pitching at Fenway Startup competition, with Nanowear coming in first place.

The Startup World Cup is a global series of competitions and conferences that connect startup ecosystems, bringing together the top startups, entrepreneurs, and investors. The competition, the largest of its kind, starts with thousands of applications, and includes more than 100 regional competitions taking place across approximately 50 countries.