GenScan AI wins top prize in Venture Catalyst Challenge 2026
The Venture Catalyst Challenge hosted its Grand Finale on Wednesday night, where the five finalists pitched their startup businesses to compete for a top prize of £20,000. This year, it was awarded to GenScan AI, founded by Mary-Brenda Akoda.
The team also received a £10,000 Track Prize, awarded in the category of Digital & Finance.
GenScan AI build softwares using the latest AI technology to speed up medical scans, the first-of-its-kind being GenMRI, which makes 20-minute MRI scans up to 90% faster. By reducing waiting times, this software has potential to cut essential time to diagnosis, saving sedation costs, lowering carbon emissions per scan, and contributing to a faster healthcare system. No hardware updates are required, working across different protocols and scanners. As opposed to accelerated MRI scans, which also take around two minutes, they provide higher quality imaging with fewer data points by using AI enhancement.
Already being fast-tracked to Nigerian hospitals, GenScan AI’s MRI technology received $100,000 for the 2026 Nigeria Prize for Science and Innovation a month ago. Earlier this year, Mary-Brenda Akoda was also recognised by Innovate UK as part of their Women in Innovation cohort, backing 100 women founders.
The other four finalists each received a £10,000 Track Prize in their category.
Veren Surgical (AI & Robotics), is developing a robotic system that accurately controls and reduces trauma in cochlear implants.
Byte (Creative & Consumer) pitched a smart mouthguard for contact sport players, to measure head impacts and subsequent injury risk and safe recovery plans.
Ryza Bio (Energy & Environment) is working on a low-cost greenhouse system that allows faster testing of herbicides on plants, attempting to improve current relatively slow testing processes used by the agrochemical industry.
Synaptive (Health & Wellbeing), engineered a patent-pending design of an EEG electrode that works on all types of hair, tackling failed or repeated testing on patients with curly or afro-textured hair.
