AI
Breast cancer biosensor and low-cost ultrasound startups win women’s health AI competition
BACKEER and Netalis Medical have won the Women’s Health × EmbryoNet-AI Startup Competition, an international initiative designed to accelerate the development of artificial intelligence solutions in women’s health.
The two winners will receive technical support worth up to €100,000, along with access to investors, to help them develop and validate their minimum viable products.
In total, the competition attracted 165 teams from Europe, Central Asia, Africa and other parts of the world. The field included early-stage startups, research laboratories and clinical groups applying artificial intelligence to solve women’s health challenges.
“We selected participants based on their potential impact on women’s health, scientific and commercial viability, data availability, alignment with EmbryoNet-AI’s capabilities, programme feasibility, as well as ethical and sustainability considerations. Both winning teams demonstrated outstanding performance across all these criteria,” said Elena Lipilina, co-founder of EmbryoNet-AI.
Kazakhstan-based BACKEER is developing a fibre-optic biosensor platform for the rapid and highly sensitive detection of biomarkers. The technology aims to improve the early diagnosis of breast cancer and increase the accuracy and speed of laboratory testing. The company plans to use the programme’s resources to build the AI-driven platform and interface for the biosensors.
South African startup Netalis Medical is building a solution for ultrasound diagnostics and maternal-fetal health monitoring. The product addresses the shortage of qualified healthcare professionals and diagnostic equipment in underserved regions by offering a more affordable and accessible alternative to conventional ultrasound systems. The company plans to use the support to build an annotated proprietary ultrasound dataset for use in ultrasound diagnostics.
The Women’s Health × EmbryoNet-AI Startup Competition was held in Portugal. It included a Mentor Sprint, where participants worked with experts in technology, marketing and clinical practice to refine their solutions and business models, and culminated in a Live Pitch Day.
The selected teams presented their solutions to investors and industry stakeholders, including femtech strategic advisor Rocsi Chereches; Dr Sabine Seymour, founder of the women’s educational platform Re.punk; Fabien Lanteri, head of health strategy and innovation; Alla Zarifyan, co-founder and head of strategy at Heartgene Science; Evgenia Zaslavskaya, founder and chief executive of communications agency Zecomms; and serial entrepreneur and angel investor Isabel Holguera Vera. They evaluated applications on their potential impact on women’s health, scientific and commercial viability, alignment with EmbryoNet-AI’s capabilities, programme feasibility, and ethical and sustainability considerations.
The winning teams will now enter a build period of eight to 10 weeks, during which EmbryoNet-AI will deliver a fully developed, services-first pilot at no cost. The companies will also gain direct access to investors active in women’s health and AI-driven biotech, as well as enhanced public credibility through investor-ready materials, including pitch decks, and media exposure.
The Women’s Health × EmbryoNet-AI Startup Competition is a first-of-its-kind programme for femtech startups and research labs, bringing together innovators working at the intersection of artificial intelligence and women’s health.
The initiative, launched by the scientific platform EmbryoNet-AI in partnership with FemTech Real Money Talks Media, a European media platform covering innovation in women’s health and femtech, aims to accelerate real-world breakthroughs by transforming early-stage ideas and clinical questions into working AI solutions.
Femtech World is excited to reveal the shortlist for this year’s AI Innovation award.
The honour is one of 10 being celebrated at Femtech World’s third annual awards event.
The AI Innovation award, sponsored by Women’s Health Week, honours the individuals and organisations using AI to do something genuinely difficult: make healthcare work better for women.
Women’s Health Week’s flagship women’s health conferences across Europe and the USA unite the complete ecosystem – visionary founders, strategic investors, multinational corporations and specialised service providers – accelerating life-changing solutions that address women’s most critical unmet health needs.
The AI Innovation award celebrates groundbreaking innovation in diagnosis, treatment accessibility and health outcomes and a clear commitment to building a more inclusive and equitable healthcare future.
This year’s shortlist reflects exactly that ambition.
The three entries will now be judged be a representative from Women’s Health Week, with the winner announced at a virtual event on June 19.
Congratulations to the shortlist and many thanks to everyone who entered.
AI Innovation Shortlist
For millions of women, years of dismissed symptoms end at the same wall: “Your labs are normal.” Diadia was built for those women – and the clinicians who want to help them but have been let down by inadequate tools.
Founded by Dr. Elena Ikonomovska, whose own experience of years of unresolved symptoms drove her from a career building AI at Google to building it for women’s health, Diadia is a genetics-informed AI clinical reasoning platform.
It analyses nearly one million genetic variants, over 200 biomarkers, and more than 310,000 peer-reviewed research papers simultaneously – identifying root causes in complex hormonal, metabolic, and endocrine cases that standard medicine routinely misses.
Developed by ParrotPal Group and anchored at the University of Cambridge, LeanShield is a domain-specific foundational AI model addressing one of the most underrecognised risks in women’s health: muscle loss driven by declining oestrogen during perimenopause.
LeanShield generates a single 0–100 muscle safety score from data women already produce. No clinic visit. No prescription.
Trained on the intersection of nutritional behaviour, training compliance, body composition and medication protocols, it is, in the words of its creators, the measurement standard women’s metabolic health has never had.
PeriGen’s technology stands out as a transformative force in maternal healthcare, using artificial intelligence to address one of the most urgent and persistent challenges in medicine: preventable complications during pregnancy and childbirth.
With more than 80 per cent of pregnancy-related deaths considered preventable, PeriGen’s PeriWatch Vigilance platform delivers real-time clinical decision support by continuously analysing maternal and foetal data.
This enables care teams to detect early warning signs and intervene faster, particularly in high-stakes labour and delivery settings where seconds matter.
By turning complex data into actionable insights, the technology helps standardise care and reduce variability across providers and institutions.
Entries for the Femtech World AI Innovation Award close this Friday at 4pm BST.
Now in its third year, the Femtech World Awards recognise the best examples of leadership, innovation and impact across women’s health.
The AI Innovation category, introduced in 2025, honours an individual or organisation pioneering the use of AI to transform women’s health outcomes.
The award is sponsored by Women’s Health Week, whose flagship women’s health conferences across Europe and the USA unite the complete ecosystem.
This includes visionary founders, strategic investors, multinational corporations, and specialised service providers – accelerating life-changing solutions that address women’s most critical unmet health needs.
To win the award, you’ll need to have demonstrated groundbreaking progress in applying AI to improve diagnosis, treatment accessibility or overall health outcomes for women, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible to create a more inclusive and equitable healthcare future.
The award is open to startups and established companies alike, whether you’re early-stage or scaled, UK-based or a global entrant.
If your technology uses AI to address any aspect of women’s health, you’re eligible to enter.
The Femtech World Awards are completely free to enter.
Whether you win or are shortlisted, you’ll receive extensive coverage across all Femtech World platforms.
Winners also receive a trophy and the chance to be interviewed by the Femtech World team.
Learn more about the awards and enter for free here.
Artificial intelligence is transforming women’s health at a pace and scale that would have seemed impossible a decade ago.
If you are building in this space, your work matters – and the AI Innovation Award exists to make sure the world knows it.
This award honours an individual or organisation pioneering the use of artificial intelligence to transform women’s health.
The winner will have demonstrated groundbreaking innovation in applying AI to improve diagnosis, treatment accessibility, or overall health outcomes for women.
This award celebrates those who are pushing the boundaries of AI to create a more inclusive, effective and equitable healthcare future for women.
Who Should Enter?
The AI Innovation Award is open to startups and established companies, early-stage products and scaled solutions, UK-based organisations and global entrants.
If your technology uses artificial intelligence to address any aspect of women’s health – reproductive health, maternal care, menopause, mental health, chronic conditions or beyond – you are eligible.
You do not need to have won awards before. You do not need a large team or significant revenue.
What you need is an innovation that is making a difference and the willingness to step forward and say so.
Judges are looking for impact, ingenuity and potential – not polish.
Enter Now
The Femtech World Awards are free to enter. And whether you win or are shortlisted you will receive extensive coverage across all Femtech World platforms.
Winners will also be sent a Femtech World Awards trophy and will have the opportunity to be interviewed by one of the team.
To find out more about the awards and see the full list of categories, head over to the entry page here.
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