Andromeda creates robot companions for aged care and assisted living environments. The MassRobotics Healthcare Robotics Startup Catalyst cohort member showed its system at the 2025 Robotics Summit & Expo. Source: WTWH Media
MassRobotics has announced the 11 companies in its 2026 Healthcare Robotics Startup Catalyst. Now in its fifth cohort, the program empowers global startups to accelerate the development and commercialization of robotic technologies that improve clinical care, hospital operations, and laboratory automation.
The selected companies will participate in a five-month mentorship program running from January to May 2026. The curriculum connects founders with senior-level experts from the organizing corporate partners, the program’s Medical Advisory Board, and the broader robotics and medical ecosystem.
“The Healthcare Robotics Startup Catalyst was created to bridge the gap between technological possibility and clinical reality,” said Juan Necochea, strategic partnerships director at MassRobotics. “This year’s cohort represents a diverse range of solutions, from AI-guided dentistry to pharmacy automation. By connecting these founders with our corporate collaborators and medical experts, we aim to shorten their path to market and ultimately improve patient outcomes.”
The 2026 Healthcare Robotics Startup Catalyst program features a hybrid structure designed to support startups regardless of their global location. Key milestones include:
- Healthcare in Robotics Week: A week of in-person events from March 16 to 20, 2026, at MassRobotics headquarters in Boston. It includes the organization‘s signature series events, connecting industry challenges and startup solutions, mentoring sessions, and an investor open house.
- Robotics Summit & Expo: The program culminates with a showcase on May 27 and 28 in Boston. At the show, the cohort will exhibit their systems on the show floor and lead a session on robotics innovation in healthcare.
Healthcare Robotics Startup Catalyst cohort has 11 members
MassRobotics listed the companies that make up the fifth Healthcare Robotics Startup Catalyst cohort.
- Concerto Biosciences is the pioneer of the “kChip,” a laboratory automation platform that constructs and measures millions of microbial combinations to map the microbial world and develop science-first human health products.
- Enchanted Tools is the company behind the Mirokaï character-based robots (see video below). It designed thm to deliver everyday on-site assistance in care settings. The robots can guide and reassure patients and residents while autonomously handling simple logistics to support care teams.
- Hesy Tech has developed an AI-guided robotic platform for preventive dentistry that automates routine hygiene tasks, allowing clinics to increase capacity and consistency under human oversight.
- Humotech powers data-driven, precision care by helping clinicians rapidly compare prosthetic foot options for people with lower limb amputation (see video below). It is a 2025 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Award winner.
- HyperSpectralCorp merges hyperspectral imaging and Raman spectroscopy with an autonomous AI scientist to enable rapid, automated pathogen detection and experimentation for healthcare and bioprocessing.
- Inception Robotics develops robots for mundane pharmacy tasks. Its MedSort autonomously sorts returned medicines to save pharmacy technician time, reduce burnout, and medication waste.
- Lupa Robotics is building a mass-scale, transferable human dexterity dataset with glove-captured vision, touch, and motion, to pioneer a robot-hand foundation model that delivers capable hands to the real world.
- Ras Labs created the Tactile Fingertip and Synthetic Muscle technologies, which provide robots with a humanlike sense of touch, enhancing dexterity for grippers, humanoids, and prosthetics.
- Revolve Surgical develops zero-footprint surgical robotics and AI platform designed to bring accessible, scalable robotic surgery to every operating room, from academic hospitals to rural outpatient centers.
- Whelix builds intelligent, modular robotic systems for wet-lab automation, specifically targeting the manual bottlenecks of cell culture to accelerate life science research.
- Zeus Robotics offers ZERA, a physical-AI autonomous robot that automates in-hospital logistics without fixed infrastructure, enabling facilities to reduce costs and operate efficiently amid labor shortages.
The 2026 session includes comprehensive support
A unique feature of the 2026 Healthcare Robotics Startup Catalyst program is the comprehensive ecosystem of support provided by an expanded Medical Advisory Board and a specialized network of industry experts.
The board is composed of practicing clinicians and healthcare executives. It provides critical validation on clinical relevance. This ensures that the robots developed will integrate into existing hospital workflows while adhering to rigorous patient safety and ethical standards, said MassRobotics.
Complementing this clinical perspective, the program’s network of industry experts will provide mentorship in operational scaling, manufacturing, and regulatory compliance. Through sessions and targeted workshops, the cohort will gain direct access to guidance on fundraising, FDA approval processes, cybersecurity requirements, and intellectual property strategy. MassRobotics said this bridges the gap between engineering prototypes and commercially viable medical products.
The nonprofit said it is the largest independent robotics hub dedicated to accelerating innovation, commercialization, and adoption. Its stated mission is to help create and scale the next generation of successful robotics and AI technology companies.
MassRobotics added that it provides entrepreneurs and startups with the workspace, resources, programming, and connections they need to develop, prototype, test, and commercialize their products and solutions.
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