The Northwestern Medicine & Techstars Healthcare Accelerator's spring program is coming to a close, and we couldn't be prouder of the five incredible companies that have been part of this class.

We recently gathered to celebrate their journey through the 3-month accelerator program. Each team took the stage to pitch, and the evening wrapped up with a lively networking hour filled with great conversations about the future of healthcare.

Meet the Companies

Arul Health

An agentic care navigation platform that helps patients and families manage cancer and other serious chronic conditions. Arul combines personalized navigation with peer-to-peer navigators, partnering with health systems, pharma, and nonprofits to reach patients where they are.

Founder & CEO: Eshan Vishwakarma

Milestone Achieved: Closed our $1.5M pre-seed during the program, with participation from Techstars, Redesign Health, the American Cancer Society, and the CEO of Moderna.

"Techstars Northwestern Medicine gave us exactly what an early-stage healthcare company needs, direct access to clinicians and healthcare leaders, mentors who pushed us to sharpen our focus, and a powerful network Coming out of the program, we're heads-down scaling our enterprise partnerships with health systems and pharma, and continuing to prove that better navigation translates into measurably better outcomes for patients and families managing chronic conditions." - Eshan Vishwakarma, CEO, Arul Health

ImmPro

Built on 20+ years and $40M of pioneering research, ImmPro is the industry leader in top-down proteomics solutions for biopharmaceutical development.

Founder & CEO: Jack McGee

Slideflow Labs

An in-house AI platform that enables hospitals to run cancer biomarkers using routine pathology slides, giving pathologists and oncologists actionable insights without disrupting existing workflows.

Founder & CEO: Akhil Chakravarti

Milestone Achieved: Winning the 30th New Venture Challenge ($575,000 prize) to catalyze our next set of product, regulatory, and commercial milestones.

"The program connected us with the right mix of clinical, technical, and operational partners to pressure-test our thinking at every level. That feedback has strengthened our company and refined our path to market. We're thankful for the time and access the program afforded us." - Akhil Chakravarti, CEO, Slideflow Labs

Soihtu DTx

Soihtu DTx is the first personalized, precision digital therapeutic (DTx) as a video game for depression.

Founder & CEO: Jukka Laakso

Milestone Achieved: A major milestone from the program has been securing interest from forward-thinking mental health providers eager to improve depression outcomes while expanding treatment capacity through our video game therapeutic platform. We are now forming an exclusive network of early implementation partners across health systems, telehealth providers, and employer benefits organizations for our 2027 launch. With only a handful of partnership slots remaining, we are looking for organizations that want to be at the forefront of the next generation of depression treatment.

"The Techstars and Northwestern Medicine Accelerator has been transformative for our company. Beyond the strong mentorship and network, it has helped us validate key assumptions, build relationships with leading healthcare stakeholders, and accelerate our roadmap. As we look ahead, we're focused on launching with a select group of pioneering healthcare partners and bringing our prescription video game treatment to depression patients, helping make evidence-based mental health care more accessible and engaging." - Lauri Lukka, Chief Psychology Officer, Soihtu DTX

Verbal

The guardrails for patient interactions. Verbal audits every interaction and the documentation it produces against an organization's policies, protocols, and regulatory standards, whether care comes from a human, an AI agent, or an AI scribe. It cuts regulatory and accreditation risk and gives full visibility into patient interactions, without adding a single FTE.

Founder & CEO: Waleed Mohsen

Milestone Achieved: Closing our Seed round and bringing on high-value investors and advisors we wouldn't have reached otherwise.

"Techstars pushed us on how we build the company as a whole. Northwestern Medicine sharpened our positioning, our value proposition, and our path to customers. The combination was powerful, and we're grateful for it." - Waleed Mohsen, CEO, Verbal

From oncology support to AI-driven compliance, this class represents the breadth and ambition of what's possible when bold founders meet the right support system. We're excited to see what comes next for each of these teams.

Read More