Funding fuels trials for CareTech Human’s health technology

A Cornell-based startup is advancing a solution that could improve care for the millions of people suffering from urological conditions in the U.S.

CareTech Human, a member of Cornell's Center for Life Science Ventures, has leveraged $500,000 in pre-seed equity funding to conduct clinical trials of its cutting-edge technology in partnership with several major healthcare institutions, including Weill Cornell Medicine and Cayuga Health, to explore potential applications for patients suffering from overactive bladder and benign prostatic hyperplasia.

The company's cloud-connected device fits inside a toilet bowl to passively measure critical indicators of urological health, such as frequency, volume, and flow of urination. The system uses infrared sensing and a proprietary AI platform to automate health tracking without requiring any user interaction.

"There are very low requirements from the user end, and this data goes through our secure cloud infrastructure where we apply our major AI, math-based algorithm," said founder and CEO Dan Matsui. "The advantage of our algorithms is that they do very complicated things, but we were able to develop them in a very low power-demanding way. Thus, the operational cost for our solution is very, very low."

CareTech Human emerged from the eō Business Incubators in Ukraine, a program founded by Charles K. Whitehead '83. Since relocating to Ithaca and joining the Center for Life Science Ventures in 2022, the company has made significant strides, receiving FDA registration and growing its capacity to produce 30 devices per month.

The company's recent funding round was led by Launch NY, a Buffalo-based venture capital fund, and included investment from the Red Bear Angels and practicing urologists who see promise in the technology.

"We're proud that four urologists invested in us as angels," Matsui said. "That shows we're really on track with our product-market fit and our product vision."

CareTech Human's pilot trial with Weill Cornell Medicine explores the device's ability to replace manual bladder diaries with automated, objective tracking for patients with overactive bladder; the trial with Cayuga Health focuses on the innovation's potential to monitor patients receiving treatment for benign prostatic hyperplasia.

"The goal is to make data collection effortless and much more accurate," Matsui said. "We're focusing first on overactive bladder and benign prostatic hyperplasia, but our technology has the potential to address other conditions as well."

CareTech Human's participation in Cornell's Center for Life Science Ventures has been instrumental to its progress, Matsui said, providing mentorship, access to research and development resources, and Cornell-related connections to help the company scale.

"The Center for Life Science Ventures treats their portfolio companies as clients, and it makes a huge difference," Matsui said.

Looking ahead, CareTech Human plans to build on the momentum from its pilots and recent funding as it prepares for a larger fundraising round to expand manufacturing and bring its device to broader clinical and consumer markets.

"We want our solution fully automated, maintenance-free, no consumables, to make it very convenient," Matsui said. "On the other hand, my end goal is to make our solution configurable based on disease history and predisposition of a person to certain diseases. Then we can open the era of really personalized medicine."