By Dov Shamir, PhD
Head of Elementa Labs and Assistant Director, Entrepreneurship at MSIP
Elementa Labs is pleased to announce its fifth cohort! Mount Sinai Innovation Partners (MSIP) recently shared how Elementa Labs provides an open and collaborative incubator with companies that have diverse financing, company stage, and countries of origin. The Winter 2025 Cohort follows many of these trends with a focus in several clinical and technology areas, and even further emphasizes international companies and founder engagement in the program, while at the same time expanding company stages as it welcomes the first Series B company.
Winter 2025 Companies
- Medwise AI – developing an AI platform that reduces administrative burden for healthcare professionals through workflow automation. Its flagship product—a clinical question-answering agent—searches vast local data to provide clinicians with instant, actionable insights at the point of care, helping them make faster, more informed decisions.
- OBELAB – advancing portable brain imaging with their product, NIRSIT, a high-resolution fNIRS system. Recently, they have begun commercializing clinical applications and are enhancing conventional NIRS technology with AI and other innovations.
- TAILRD | Heart – developing an AI-powered solution for the full spectrum of cardiovascular disease, integrating artificial intelligence with clinical expertise enhances diagnostic accuracy, surfaces personalized treatments, and improves patient outcomes at population, panel, and individual levels.
First Majority International Cohort
Elementa Labs has been a magnet for international startups and founders. Since its launch, international company engagement has been sustained, making up over 36% of the applicant pool and now 28% of the portfolio to date. Most of the Winter 2025 companies are international, hailing from areas never represented in the program, such as the United Kingdom (Medwise AI) and South Korea (OBELAB). Now 72% of portfolio CEOs and founders are foreign born or immigrants to the United States, representing Mexico, Russia, Israel, Canada, Ukraine, and India. This trends well with other groups that have found 55% of American billionaire-dollar startups have an immigrant founder and at least 31% of venture-backed founders are immigrants.
Many of these international companies have had traction in their home countries and see Elementa as a foothold to launch their products in the United States: taking advantage of the program’s open format to gain exposure to the larger U.S. health care market, gain a better understanding of its regulatory and clinical trial practices, and further exposure to its capital markets. All of this allows them to better refine their go-to-market strategy and value add as they enter this market.
From Pre- Seed to Series B: A Wide Breadth of Company Maturity
Prior to this cohort, Elementa Labs had only accepted Pre-Seed (40%) and Seed (60%) stage companies, despite a portion of company applicants being Series A+ (9%). The 2025 Winter Cohort includes companies ranging from Pre-Seed to Series B, with companies seeking to advance their solutions with Mount Sinai and explore how their new products will fit unmet clinical needs in a real-world environment. These common objectives re-affirm the biggest value add of the program in advancing company solutions that are on the rise in their innovative efforts and how Mount Sinai can collaborate and guide them in these early days, regardless of company stage.
Series A+ stage companies have not been accepted in the past primarily since the program aligns best with highly collaborative companies seeking to advance new solutions with Mount Sinai. Series A+ stage companies have made their primary innovation and want to get their current iterated product in the hands of the customer. The more mature the company, the lower the priority for new product innovation until their first product generates a sustained and scalable business model. We look forward to continuing to entertain these later stage company applications in the future.
MSIP is excited to see what’s in store for the Winter 2025 cohort and will provide updates at the Demo Day in May. Keep a look out for registration for this event and other MSIP events by checking our events page or subscribing to our newsletter.