$200K goes to four pediatric medtech startups

The Midwest Pediatric Device Consortium awarded $200,000 in non-dilutive funding to four startups and labs developing child-sized cardiovascular technologies at a showcase in Cincinnati on May 15. The event highlighted how pediatric device innovation is being driven by clinical urgency, family experience and a chronic funding gap in children’s medtech. Why it matters: - Pediatric cardiovascular devices can reduce repeat surgeries, speed diagnosis and improve monitoring for children with heart disease. - The funding is non-dilutive, which helps early-stage teams keep ownership while they move toward clinical use. - The showcase also reflects a broader gap: pediatric device startups still receive less than 2% of seed funding in healthtech, even though children make up 22% of the U.S. population. What happened: - The Midwest Pediatric Device Consortium held its 2026 Showcase in Cincinnati on May 15. - More than 120 clinicians, funders and institutional partners attended. - The event was developed with the Alliance for Pediatric Device Innovation and the Advanced Cardiac Therapies Improving Outcomes Network. - A pitch competition awarded joint MPDC/APDI funding to four pediatric innovators. - Each awardee received $50,000 in non-dilutive funding, for a total of $200,000. The details: - AcQumen Medical is developing UltraTrac, a blood-flow monitoring device designed to deliver continuous cardiac metrics without needles or catheters. - Bloom Standard is developing the RAPIDscan Ultrasound System for earlier detection of heart and lung abnormalities. - The Edelman Lab at the Harvard-MIT Biomedical Engineering Center is developing a polymeric pediatric stent for children with congenital heart defects, including aortic coarctation and pulmonary artery stenosis. - PolyVascular is working on a polymer-based pulmonary valve designed to expand as a child grows, with the goal of reducing repeat open-heart surgeries. - Other presenters included AVaTAR MedTech, CorVita Biomedical, PeriCor and Trémedics Medical Devices. - Over the past year, MPDC has supported more than 135 companies and awarded nearly $500,000 in non-dilutive funding. - MPDC has also used its resources to support companies across the U.S. and Ohio’s pediatric medtech ecosystem in particular. - APDI is one of five FDA-funded Pediatric Device Consortia supporting pediatric device development. - ACTION is an international learning network focused on improving outcomes for pediatric and congenital heart failure patients. - Kolaleh Eskandanian, vice president and chief innovation officer at Children’s National, delivered the keynote address. Between the lines: - The founders’ personal stories show why pediatric medtech often advances from direct family experience as much as from market opportunity. - Annamarie Saarinen, CEO of Bloom Standard, was motivated by her newborn daughter’s diagnosis of heart failure. - Katie Bales, vice president of investor relations at PolyVascular, was pushed into the work after her son’s prenatal congenital heart defect diagnosis. - Dori Jones, founder of AcQumen, said her son’s time in the NICU and pediatric ICU drives her work every day. - Cory Criss, MD, pediatric surgeon at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and MPDC co-lead, said the mission is to get the best technologies to the children who need them. - The showcase highlighted how consortiums and cardiovascular networks are trying to make pediatric device development less fragmented. What’s next: - MPDC is inviting pediatric device innovators, clinicians, medical advisors, investors, industry partners, hospital leaders and family foundations to engage with the consortium. - Interested groups can learn more at pedsinnovation.org . - The consortium and its partners are expected to keep pushing devices from concept toward commercialization and clinical adoption. The bottom line: - The Cincinnati showcase used a relatively small pool of grant money to support technologies aimed at a long-overlooked patient group: children with cardiovascular disease.