An East Bay startup developing technology to catch more fetal abnormalities won the final pitch battle during TechCrunch's annual Disrupt conference on Thursday.
Oakland-based BioticsAI beat five other finalists for the $100,000 cash prize in the pitch competition, known as Startup Battlefield.
BioticsAI was one of two Bay Area-based startups that ascended to the finals, where they made one last pitch to a panel of judges.
This year's judges included outgoing TechCrunch Editor-in-Chief Matthew Panzarino and former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer alongside several venture capitalists including Mamoon Hamid of Kleiner Perkins, Mar Hershenson of Pear VC, Charles Hudson of Precursor and Dana Settle of Greycroft.
More than 3,000 startups applied for the Battlefield competition this year, TechCrunch said, and from that batch, the technology news site selected 200 startups to showcase at the conference, then narrowed it down to the top 20, which went on to compete over the three-day conference.
Ultimately, the judges picked BioticsAI as the winner on Thursday.
"It's humbling" to win, BioticsAI co-founder and CEO Robhy Bustami told me, "because of the work we're doing, but it's also super gratifying to know that it's a big problem that we're trying to solve. So, the fact that it's getting that exposure also really excites me."
Bustami co-founded BioticsAI in 2020 with COO Salman Khan, CTO Chaskin Saroff and chief medical officer Hisham Elgammal.
They're building software that can increase the quality of the data that's collected during routine ultrasound appointments during the second trimester of pregnancy. The goal is to help obstetricians catch more fetal anomalies more quickly.
Eventually, BioticsAI wants to expand into a broader AI-powered diagnostics platform for medical specialties including gynecology, urology, neonatology and reproductive health.
Watch BioticAI's final pitch below.
The runner up in the pitch competition was Electrified Thermal Solutions, a Massachusetts-based startup developing thermal batteries.
The other Bay Area finalist was San Francisco-based Parallel Health, a biotech skincare company founded in 2021 by CEO Natalise Kalea Robinson and Chief Science Officer Nathan Brown.
Parallel Health harnesses phages — viruses that are harmless to humans — to target harmful bacteria found on the skin while leaving beneficial bacteria untouched. Phages are also a potential alternative to antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals that have undesirable side effects.
The company has developed phage-based serums for treating acne that are tailored to eight different skin types. Which skin type a customer has is determined by an at-home cotton swab test which Parallel Health analyzes.
Its serum line is considered a cosmetic product, which doesn't need approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. But next year, Parallel Health will begin pre-clinical trials for a therapeutic treatment that will eventually need FDA approval.
"Our vision has always been to execute on personalized health and personalized medicine through the tools that we have today, whether that's sequencing or phages or automation or robotics," Kalea Robinson told me. "It's precision health and precision medicine. When we talk about the cosmeceuticals line, I think for me, it's much simpler. We just want to empower you to live in your best skin."
Watch Parallel Health's final pitch below.
