Student-led startups

Athletec spun out of the Imperial College Biomechatronics Laboratory in 2015 to spearhead wearable technologies in combat sports.  Drawing from neurotechnology research in motion tracking for stroke and Parkinson’s disease, Athletec was formed to enhance the effectiveness and direct the focus of training in Combat sport in a manner akin to neural rehabilitation. Imperial biomechatronics student Charles Burr created "Corner", a revolutionary product for monitoring boxing performance. 

Corner was named Gadget of the Month in Wearable Technologies (March 2016). The company was also a Finalist for the UK Big Chip Digital Industry Award (June 2016) and was featured on the TV show Dragon's Den in 2018.

Dr. Nickolai Vysokov started his PhD at Department of Bioengineering in 2010 working on using optogenetics for restoring signalling in the visual systems. In 2018 he co-founded BrainPatch.AI, a company aiming to develop a platform technology for effective non-invasive brain stimulation applications through targeting peripheral nervous systems and through real-time personalised feedback algorithms. The company has been through a competitive acceleration programme at Central Research Laboratory, where they applied their patented technologies and developed a consumer neurostimulation device for an experience they call e-meditation as the studies conducted with academic partners show effects on brain waves, heart rate derivatives as well as subjective reports consistent with the effects of meditation.

Connectome Health is a Swiss- and UK-based neuro-technology start-up dedicated to making cognitive health as measurable and actionable as heart rate. The company pairs non-invasive fNIRS imaging with targeted cognitive tasks and lifestyle metrics to provide individuals and clinicians with a data-rich view of cognitive fitness and healthy ageing. Its rapid scans integrate smoothly into existing longevity or performance programmes, while a cloud dashboard converts raw neural signals into clear, personalised recommendations.

The ambition at the heart of Connectome’s R&D pipeline is to build a nuanced mental model of the human brain, trained on large-scale longitudinal neural data. That vision is rooted in Imperial College London. Chief Science Officer and Co-founder, Dr Rufus Mitchell-Heggs spent the past decade at Imperial - progressing from a Biochemistry degree to an MRes in Neurotechnology and, ultimately, a PhD in computational neuroscience jointly supervised by Professor Richard Morris (University of Edinburgh) and Professor Simon Schultz (Imperial). His research spanned longitudinal neural-population dynamics and the mechanisms of memory – work that underpins Connectome Health’s analytics engine.

Koniku Inc. is a synthetic neurotechnology company based in San Rafael - San Francisco. Koniku uses live cultured neurons as sensors, amplifiers and biological signal processors, combining them with silicon to build “olfactory cyborgs”. It was founded by CEO and CTO, Osh Agabi, while he was a PhD student at Imperial College London.