Paratus Digital Health Accelerator — Non-dilutive Funding to address traumatic brain injury (TBI)
Challenge statement: Providing non-dilutive funding for advanced development of digital tools for assessing traumatic brain injury (TBI) as a medical consequence of nuclear detonation and other blast events.
Overview
We invite startups and university-backed projects to apply for non-dilutive funding ranging from $500,000 to $2,000,000 per project. This funding supports the advanced development of innovative digital health tools aligned with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority’s (BARDA) mission to advance products that address assessment of traumatic brain injuries (TBI) caused by nuclear detonation.
MATTER’s Paratus Digital Health Accelerator provides funding and support to help entrepreneurs develop the clinical, technical and business aspects of their solutions. Paratus also connects innovators with mission-aligned study sites to accelerate development and validation.
Who should apply?
We are seeking innovators building digital health tools that improve triage for suspected head injuries in prehospital settings and enable faster identification of acute TBI needing urgent care.
This global call welcomes companies, nonprofits and academic teams with proof of concept, evidence of demand or product–market fit and viable sustainability/commercialization potential. The base requirements for the program include the following:
- General: Digital health technology related to diagnosis and triage of suspected traumatic brain injury, ideally for both adult and pediatric populations.
- Technology maturity: At a minimum, data collection and analysis approach has been completed.
- Software Prototype Stage: $500k - $1M; approximately 12 month-long projects. Applicant has established their data collection and analysis approach, but additional software development, analytical validation, and data collection from a small number of TBI patients is needed to build their algorithm and prepare for a larger-scale data collection.
- Early Clinical Stage: up to $2M; approximately 12-24 months-long projects. Applicant has demonstrated proof-of-concept for their indication with a small number of TBI patients but expanded clinical data collection is needed to refine and test their algorithm, and to demonstrate the value of using their technology.
- Intended use: The solution should be usable by health care professionals, first responders and/or self-administered within 24-72 hours following the injury in a prehospital setting, with limited access to imaging and lab equipment. Results in 2-5 minutes.
- System/device architecture: Mobile medical application running on commonly available consumer technologies with limited auxiliary components. Compatible with popular operating systems and, ideally, interoperable with Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems.
For the full detail on program requirements, review BARDA’s official solicitation and outline of target technology profiles.
Seeking: Innovative digital health solutions aligned with BARDA’s mission to enhance pandemic preparedness and fortify health security.
This program is seeking to accelerate digital health tools that enhance preparedness and response to public health emergencies due to:
- Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats
- Pandemic Influenza
- Emerging Infectious Diseases
Technology Focus Areas for this Accelerator Program:
Digital health technologies for rapid screening and detection
Rapidly deployable digital health technologies for screening, detection, diagnosis and/or risk assessment of health security threats including but not limited to Influenza and pandemic influenza, CBRN threats, and Emerging Infectious Diseases.
AI tools for medical countermeasure development
AI algorithms and architectures that can enable MCM development specifically in de novo drug design, drug candidate repurposing, optimizing clinical trials and addressing regulatory bottlenecks in the clinical development process.
Novel analytics and data sources for health threat assessment
Combining novel analytic approaches, such as AI/ML, with broadly accessible data sources such as images, audio, sensors or user data from smartphones/wearable devices; or other novel digital data sources for screening, detection, diagnosis and/or risk assessment of health security threats.
Wearable IoT for continuous disease monitoring
Wearable IoT that produces accurate and reliable data which enables continuous and real-time monitoring for early disease detection and prediction, accelerating response to health security threats.
If your solution is working in another segment or space, please provide a narrative around how it relates to the focus areas above.
Timeline
October 15, 2025: Applications open
December 3, 2025: Applications close
December 19, 2025: Cohort announced
January 12, 2026–March 20, 2026: 10-week accelerator
March 2026: Final Showcase
Deadline to apply is December 3, 2025 at 11:59pm CT.