Digital Health Rewired Pitchfest 2026 finalists announced
- Eight of the most exciting digital health start-ups have progressed to the live final of Pitchfest 2026
- They will pitch their ideas in front of a live audience of NHS leaders, investors and industry peers at Rewired on 25 March 2026
- The winner will receive expert advice from CW+ and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust’s CW innovation team
Eight of the most exciting digital health start-ups have progressed to the live final of Pitchfest at Digital Health Rewired 2026.
Pitchfest offers digital health start-ups the chance to pitch their ideas in front of a live audience of NHS leaders, investors and industry peers at the UK’s largest digital health event Rewired26.
Finalists were chosen from a shortlist of 16 applicants at online heats in January and will now progress to the live final.
Pitchfest judge, Jon Hoeksma, founder and chair of Digital Health, said: “The amazing Pitchfest finalists are perhaps the most diverse and international line-up yet, spanning medical devices, diagnostics, software and AI, and demonstrating just how much amazing innovation is happening across UK healthcare.
“All eight finalists will be pitching live at Rewired on the Best Practice Showcase Stage before being grilled by the Pitchfest judges, who will then announce the winner.”
A precision oncology company that treats cancer as a network, not a single target. Its AI platform integrates genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and synthetic lethality to map each patient’s full tumour network, identifying vulnerabilities that single-target approaches miss.
A no-code digital infrastructure for the next generation of digital therapeutics and patient-facing digital care apps, which enables clinicians, researchers and health organisations to create evidence-based interventions for prevention, support, treatment and diagnostics.
Lloyd Humphreys, managing director at Cogniss, said: “We’re delighted that Cogniss has reached the finals of Rewired Pitchfest.
“Recognition alongside the UK’s leading digital health innovators reinforces the growing demand for a new approach – one that empowers healthcare experts to build the next generation of patient-facing technologies using no-code.”
A women’s health biotech which aims to close the gender health gap through science-led innovation. Its flagship product, the Daye Diagnostic Tampon, transforms a familiar product into a powerful at-home tool for detecting high-risk HPV, the leading cause of cervical cancer.
Valentina Milanova, founder and chief executive of Daye, said: “Being named a Digital Health Rewired Pitchfest finalist is meaningful because it signals that the future of women’s health is finally being built with the same clinical ambition and digital sophistication as the rest of healthcare.
“At Daye, we’ve spent years validating a tampon-based diagnostic platform that integrates with existing laboratory PCR workflows and NHS pathways, making cervical cancer and HPV screening more accessible without lowering clinical standards.
“If we are serious about eliminating cervical cancer and closing longstanding gender health gaps, innovation must be both evidence-led and system-ready.”
A spin-out from UCLPartners with a goal of driving a national transformation in cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention. The initiative called CVDACTION is powered by a secure analytics platform, embedded in GP electronic patient record systems, that transforms routine data into actionable insights, enabling targeted optimisation of high-risk patients.
Matt Kearney, chief executive of Into-Action.Health, said: “I am thrilled to be selected as a finalist in Digital Health Rewired Pitchfest 2026.
“Really looking forward to sharing the CVDACTION story – how we can help the NHS achieve a step change in prevention of heart attacks and strokes.”
Jigsaw Medical helps hospitals with mandatory clinical coding, where critical workforce shortages threaten to destabilise hospital finances. The AI automates a proportion of the clinical coding workload.
Grant Nolan, founder and chief executive of Jigsaw Medical, said: “Clinical coding is a worsening challenge for most NHS hospitals.
“We’re thrilled to be in the Rewired Pitchfest final with Jigsaw, showing how AI can help address these critical coding shortages for NHS hospitals.”
LightHearted AI develops non-contact, light-based cardiovascular diagnostics medical technology using quantum photonic sensors and AI.
Lucrezia Cester, co-founder and chief executive of LightHearted AI, said: “We are very excited to be finalists. Across the NHS women die twice more than men of heart valve disease due to being severely under diagnosed.
“We’re excited to tackle this issue with the NHS and ensure equitable diagnostics.”
Mavis Technologies aims to transform life for people with sight loss through AI-powered smart glasses. The glasses combine obstacle detection, scene description, text-to-speech and navigation in a lightweight, user-centred design.
An early-stage start-up combining Mobile, VR and Generative AI to scale access to quality, on-the-job training in the NHS.
Andrew Darby-Smith, founder of Upskill.Health, said: “I’m delighted to be selected as a Pitchfest 2026 finalist.
“With NHS maternity services facing urgent safety and equity challenges, we believe the fastest route to impact is scaling on-the-job training to learn from adverse events across the NHS and connect frontline staff to local women’s lived experiences.”
Pitchfest is supported by Silver Buck, The Hill and DigitalHealth.London.
The winning start-up will receive advice from Pitchfest partner CW+ and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust’s CW innovation team, as well as the potential to run a project in the trust.
Rewired26 is taking place on 24-25 March 2026 at the NEC Birmingham. It is free to attend for NHS, public sector, charities, research and education organisations, with commercial tickets available. Register here.
