MedTech Innovator Names Powerful Medical and Wavelet as Winners of the 2025 Mid-Stage Grand Prize and Value Award
MedTech Innovator , recognized as the world’s largest accelerator dedicated to advancing medical technology and empowering emerging healthtech innovators, has announced the winners of its prestigious 2025 Mid-Stage Grand Prize and Value Award competitions. The announcement was made during the MedTech Strategist Innovation Summit held in San Diego, one of the most influential gatherings for global medical technology leaders, investors, and innovators. After months of rigorous review, mentorship, and competitive pitching, Powerful Medical earned the 2025 Mid-Stage Grand Prize, while Wavelet secured the 2025 Value Award, marking standout achievements among a highly competitive cohort.
Celebrating Leadership in Clinically Transformative Innovation
As the 2025 Mid-Stage Grand Prize winner, Powerful Medical received a $200,000 cash award, underscoring the accelerator’s belief in the company’s ability to transform cardiac care through AI-driven technology. Meanwhile, Wavelet, named the winner of the 2025 Value Award, took home a $25,000 prize, reinforcing its strong value proposition in maternal and fetal health.
Both awards represent significant milestones for emerging medtech companies. Throughout the competition, finalists delivered in-depth presentations, demonstrated real-world use cases, and answered probing questions from expert judging panels. Following these sessions, a live audience composed of industry veterans, investors, strategists, and clinicians voted in real time to determine the winners.
Powerful Medical: Setting a New Standard in Acute Cardiac Care
The Mid-Stage Grand Prize win is a defining moment for Powerful Medical, a company at the forefront of applying artificial intelligence to emergency cardiac diagnostics. Speaking about the achievement, Martin Herman, co-founder and CEO of Powerful Medical, shared his excitement and emphasized the broader impact of the company’s mission.
“Winning MedTech Innovator’s 2025 Mid-Stage Grand Finals competition is an extraordinary achievement,” Herman said. “This recognition validates our mission to transform acute cardiac care. With PMcardio and the Queen of Hearts AI, clinicians can diagnose life-threatening heart attacks with twice the sensitivity of the current standard of care, and do so at first medical contact, when every minute determines how much of the heart can still be saved.”
Herman’s comments highlight the urgency of advancing rapid diagnostic tools in healthcare systems across the world. Heart attacks remain a top cause of mortality globally, and delays in diagnosis drastically reduce survival and recovery outcomes. PMcardio’s AI-driven capabilities—designed to identify cardiac events with enhanced precision—represent a crucial step forward in empowering clinicians and emergency responders.
MTI’s CEO Applauds the Company’s Momentum and Impact
Paul Grand, CEO of MedTech Innovator, echoed Herman’s enthusiasm, noting that Powerful Medical exemplifies what the Mid-Stage Competition aims to spotlight: companies making real, measurable impact on patient care.
“I’m thrilled to see Powerful Medical win our Mid-Stage Grand Prize Competition, demonstrating the all-around value, momentum, and execution that our judges considered in selecting the Mid-Stage finalists,” Grand said. “The company’s AI-enabled care platform is delivering on the promise of AI to significantly improve patient outcomes while lowering the cost of care, and we’ve been excited to help their innovation scale in impact as it enters the U.S. market.”
Grand’s remarks encapsulate MTI’s mission: to accelerate innovation that improves lives while addressing the systemic pressures faced by modern healthcare systems—including rising costs, workforce shortages, and gaps in diagnostic accuracy.
A Cohort of Strong Contenders in the Mid-Stage Competition
MTI introduced the Mid-Stage Competition to shine a spotlight on more mature companies within its accelerator cohort—companies that have gained traction, achieved early market success, or demonstrated clinical validation. This year, the finalists were selected from 19 mid-stage companies, narrowed down by MTI’s selection committee to four standout competitors:
- BRIJ Medical – Marietta, Georgia
- MedCu Technologies – Herzliya, Israel
- Multiphze – Glendale, California
- Powerful Medical – Bratislava, Slovakia (winner)
Each finalist received a $25,000 prize, recognizing their leadership and innovative contributions in their respective clinical fields.
Wavelet Wins the Prestigious Value Award
While the Mid-Stage award emphasizes clinical impact and business momentum, the Value Award spotlights companies that have developed compelling, evidence-based value propositions—showing strong potential to improve patient experience, decrease costs, and demonstrate measurable clinical benefit. This year’s Value Award winner, Wavelet, emerged as a leader after months of intensive work within MTI’s Value Program.
The Value Award Competition is the culmination of MTI’s Value Program, which spans several months and includes mentorship from 37 value coaches—experienced experts who help companies refine strategies, demonstrate patient and economic value, and strengthen market positioning. From the accelerator cohort, value coaches nominated 28 companies. Of these, 13 were shortlisted, and five ultimately reached the finals:
- inSoma Bio – Durham, North Carolina
- STENTiT – Eindhoven, Netherlands
- Wavelet – New Haven, Connecticut (winner)
- VQ Biomedical – Apex, North Carolina
- Winter Innovations – Knoxville, Tennessee
Wavelet’s victory followed a live audience vote during the Innovation Summit. The company’s work in maternal and fetal health resonated strongly with industry stakeholders increasingly focused on solutions addressing high-risk pregnancies, birth complications, and global disparities in maternal outcomes.
Wavelet CEO Celebrates a Pivotal Milestone
Liz Golden, co-founder and CEO of Wavelet, expressed gratitude and pride in her company’s journey through MTI’s accelerator.
“Winning the MedTech Innovator 2025 Value Award, and taking the top spot in their competition again, is a powerful validation of Wavelet’s momentum,” Golden said. “This program has fueled our rapid growth and our mission to improve outcomes for mothers and babies globally.”
Her remarks underscore the urgency of improving maternal health outcomes worldwide. Complications in pregnancy and childbirth remain leading causes of death and disability, particularly in underserved regions. Wavelet’s innovations are designed to address these gaps through earlier detection, better monitoring, and improved access to data-driven care.
Industry Leaders Endorse the Company’s Vision
Paul Grand praised Wavelet’s achievement and highlighted the broader significance of innovations in maternal and fetal care.
“Congratulations to Wavelet for winning our Value Award competition, an incredible achievement among a field of outstanding finalists in a variety of high-value clinical areas,” he stated. “We are excited for this continued validation by the many experts and strategists in the industry, who voted Wavelet the winner in two of our competitions, that innovations in maternal and fetal health offer an extremely compelling value proposition.”
Expert Panels Play a Crucial Role in the Selection Process
The competitions featured two expert panels representing diverse sectors of the medtech landscape. These judges engaged directly with finalists, asking technical, strategic, and clinical questions that challenged them to demonstrate clarity of vision, market readiness, regulatory pathways, and patient impact.
Mid-Stage Grand Prize Judges:
- Yorick Schut – Director of Business Development, Johnson & Johnson MedTech
- Mirren Mandalia – Vice President, Corporate Development & Venture, LivaNova
- Virginia Giddings – Vice President, Exploration, Edwards Lifesciences
Value Award Judges:
- Bill Perry – Lead Advisor, American Society of Plastic Surgeons
- Lynn Carney – Director, Agency and Alliances, Medmarc
- Jason Halac – Managing Director, Dexcom Ventures CVC
Their real-time Q&A sessions helped differentiate companies that were technically sound from those with market-ready, strategically robust solutions.
