New Delhi: From long hospital queues to last-minute diagnoses—we have all seen how broken India’s healthcare system can be. But, amid these everyday frustrations, a quiet shift is underway towards care that is faster, ‘smarter’, and designed for people, not just patients.
Backing this change is the BITS Pilani flagship start-up accelerator, Conquest, which supports a new generation of founders through a zero-cost, zero-equity model, helping reimagine healthcare for the better.
Whether it is a breath-based tool flagging early health risks, an AI layer helping hospitals match patients to trials, or a genomics platform telling you what your DNA has to say about your future, these teams are solving real problems for real people.
As India grapples with rising chronic illnesses, limited access to specialists, and a growing demand for preventive care, this new generation of healthcare start-ups has been stepping up with bold ideas and lived empathy.
Let us meet the innovators leading the way.
Jeune Health
Founder: Shashank Choudhary
Founded in: 2025
HQ: Bengaluru, Karnataka
Jeune Health plans to drastically improve how clinical trials recruit relevant patients with a ‘trial OS (operating system)’ for hospitals and clinical research organisations (CROs). Clinical trial recruitment today is a slow and inefficient process, with only 30 percent of recruited patients proving clinically relevant, and it can take up to 3 years to find the right cohort.
Jeune solves this through an AI-powered patient-trial matchmaking engine. It uses natural language processing, or NLP, to interpret raw electronic health records and match them to trial criteria. So, it helps hospitals and CROs find patients faster and more accurately with an automated consent management system built in. The two-sided business model also creates a monetised referral loop between hospitals and CROs, streamlining an otherwise fragmented system.
SugarStrings.ai
Founders: Tony Jose, Dr Rajasekhara Reddy, Dhaneesh Jameson
Founded in: 2023
HQ: Bengaluru, Karnataka
Sugarstrings.ai is redefining preventive health with its next-generation genetic screening platform, delivering diagnostic-grade reports for over 6,000 diseases with 95 percent accuracy. Unlike conventional polygenic risk score models, which suffer from population bias and low clinical utility, Sugarstrings uses proprietary machine learning models for diverse Indian genetic data.
Their clients range from start-up CXOs (CEO, CFO, CMO, among others) to doctors and celebrities. The platform enables not only diagnosis, but peace of mind, actionable prevention, and treatment guidance. With concierge-style D2C positioning and bundled health span offerings, Sugarstrings is making high-precision genetics both luxurious and life-saving.
Humors Tech
Founders: Ankur Jaiswal, Suchita Kanaldekar
Founded in: 2021
HQ: Bengaluru, Karnataka
Built by a team with deep roots in biotechnology research and embedded systems, Humorstech-Respyr is a start-up on a mission to make preventive healthcare accessible—one breath at a time. The team has made the country’s first patented breath-based health screening system, focusing on identifying early signs of metabolic stress through the analysis of volatile organic compounds (VOC).
Combining real-time analytics with user-friendly hardware, the team has already created a clinically validated and non-invasive platform for obtaining insights into sugar, gut, liver, and respiratory health. With support from IIT Patna, the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), and multiple hospital collaborations, Respyr is now expanding its presence through the D2C (direct-to-consumer) and B2B2C (business-to-business-to-consumer) channels.
‘Demo Day’
Together, Jeune Health, SugarStrings.ai, and Humorstech-Respyr show India’s healthcare innovations will become more accessible, data-driven, and preventive. With a focus on real-world problems and patient-first design, the start-ups are moving healthcare beyond hospitals and into everyday life—quietly reshaping how to understand and deliver care.
The online phase of Conquest is currently in motion, featuring intensive mentorship and founder support. Up next is the offline leg where selected start-ups will come together for in-person sessions, culminating in ‘Demo Day’, this August.
Registrations for Conquest ‘25 are open on Conquest’s website. Click here to visit.
Conquest 2025 is being organised by BITS Pilani. ThePrint is its Digital Outreach Partner.
Also Read: India’s accelerator boom needs a reset. How BITS Pilani’s Conquest provides the blueprint