Health Tech World is excited to reveal the shortlist for the 2026 Startup of the Year.
The award is one of eight to feature at Health Tech World’s forth-annual awards event.
The Health Tech World Awards recognises the health innovators and innovations helping to transform outcomes across the globe.
The event celebrates the best examples of leadership, innovation and impact spanning life sciences, medtech, digital health and beyond.
About the sponsor
Exponential-e is a UK leader in digital transformation, with a unique consultative approach to delivering bespoke, fully integrated solutions that enable scalable, high-performance IT.
As a trusted technology partner for more than 3,000 companies, its evolving portfolio encompasses public, private, and hybrid Cloud , leading-edge SD-WAN and SASE, cyber security and disaster recovery, unified communications and contact centre, and managed IT – all powered by Exponential-e’s enterprise-class network.
What happens now
The three shortlisted startups will be judged by a representative from Exponential-e who will reveal the winner at a virtual event on October 28.
The award-winner will receive a trophy and an interview with a Health Tech World journalist.
Congratulations to the shortlist and thank you to everyone who took the time to enter.
Startup of the Year Shortlist
Septest is tackling one of the most urgent gaps in modern healthcare: serious infection is time critical, but the biological information clinicians need often arrives too late.
Septest is developing TRISEP, a rapid, analyser free, multi biomarker lateral flow test designed to provide near patient insight into infection and inflammation in around 15 minutes.
Unlike conventional approaches that often focus on a single infection type or delayed laboratory workflows, TRISEP is being developed to support assessment across bacterial, viral and fungal
infection patterns, and inflammation.
Since incorporation in 2022, the company has built a protected intellectual property portfolio, secured specialist regulatory input, attracted experienced diagnostics leadership and raised early SEIS and EIS seed investment, including backing from Oxford Technology, Kappika Ventures, Keiretsu Forum and private angel investors.
ThriveHer was founded in 2025 with a clear mission: to bridge the health equity gap for underserved women through clinically led, culturally responsive innovation.
ThriveHer is developing a doctor-led digital Heart Health Pre-Check designed to support earlier identification and appropriate entry into existing NHS prevention pathways.
The patient-facing pathway captures traditional, women-specific and access-related risk information and provides clear, non-diagnostic signposting.
A clinician-facing summary makes relevant information visible and supports, rather than replaces, professional judgement.
The model combines evidence-based care, accessible health education and culturally responsive communication.
Zonova is a MedTech company dedicated to eliminating healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) at the source.
While modern medicine relies on medical devices like catheters, IVs, and breathing tubes, these plastic surfaces often act as breeding grounds for dangerous bacteria – responsible for an estimated 70 per cent of all hospital acquired infections.
Zonova’s proprietary antimicrobial technology is embedded directly into the material of these devices, preventing bacterial growth before it starts.
Founded in 2023, Zonova grew out of co-founder Dr Georgia Fleet’s curiosity after a conversation with an ICU doctor who shared that the suspected leading cause of death in critical care was often secondary infections caused by medical devices.
Source link
