ING Awards €230,000 to Innovations Supporting Human Health
Innovation, Healthtech
💎 How ING’s Grant Program Is Fueling the Next Generation of Health Technologies
In its eighth edition, ING’s flagship Grant Program has once again spotlighted some of the most promising ideas at the intersection of technology and human health. The bank allocated €230,000 (1 million PLN) to early-stage innovators and researchers developing tools that could reshape diagnostics, patient monitoring, and medical workflows. This year’s theme — “How can technology support health?” — drew a record 336 applications, underscoring the growing momentum of deep-tech and medtech entrepreneurship in Poland.
The program’s structure remains consistent with ING’s long-term strategy: catalyzing innovation aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals while giving young companies a chance to accelerate scientific validation and early commercial traction. As ING Vice-President Joanna Erdman emphasized, the scale of submissions reflects both public interest in health technologies and the widening relevance of digital tools in medicine. The shortlist represents solutions that already demonstrate measurable medical impact or strong potential for clinical adoption.
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Breakthroughs in tissue modeling, blood diagnostics, and neonatal cardiology
The top prize of €92,000 went to Living Networks, a biotech developing vascularized in-vitro human tissue models for preclinical research and functional diagnostics. Their platform replicates microvascular structures, enabling more accurate drug-response testing and reducing reliance on animal models. As pharmaceutical companies face rising R&D costs and increasing pressure for precision testing, such engineered tissues offer a pathway toward safer and more efficient preclinical pipelines.
Second place and €69,000 were awarded to Orei Health, creators of Orei One — a single-use, painless, at-home blood-collection device designed to draw samples from the upper arm. By simplifying the blood draw process, Orei One could expand access to remote diagnostics and chronic-care monitoring, particularly for patients who struggle with traditional venipuncture procedures.
The third major award (€35,000) went to Prometheus MedTech.AI, whose software analyzes fetal and neonatal ultrasound recordings to automatically detect indicators of congenital heart defects. In a field where early diagnosis dramatically influences outcomes, AI-supported cardiology tools could become essential in high-risk pregnancies and pediatric care. Their platform demonstrates how machine-learning applied to real-world clinical imaging can augment medical decision-making without adding complexity to existing workflows.
Special distinctions highlight dental innovation and regulatory automation
Two additional awards broadened this year’s impact landscape. Air Abrasion System, developer of the AbraJet high-pressure dental device for painless cavity treatment, received a €23,000 distinction for innovation in minimally invasive dentistry. Meanwhile, the €11,500 Public Choice Award went to Syntro, a platform that automates creation of regulatory-compliant pharmaceutical documentation — a traditionally labor-intensive, error-prone domain.
A program with long-term national significance
Launched eight years ago, ING’s annual grant program has now distributed €1.84 million across innovations supporting sustainability, energy transition, public health, water management, and urban resilience. Each edition aligns with a specific SDG, creating a thematic pipeline of socially meaningful technologies. With nearly 1,300 total applications since inception, the program has evolved into one of Poland’s most recognized early-stage innovation accelerators operating outside the VC ecosystem.
This year’s focus on health reflects broader social and economic realities. The demand for accessible diagnostics, AI-assisted medical tools, and patient-centric devices continues to rise. At the same time, Polish research teams and startups are increasingly competitive on the European medtech stage, supported by a growing network of accelerators, bio-innovation labs, and public-private funding mechanisms.
By financing high-potential teams at the early research and prototyping stages, ING’s program helps bridge the gap between scientific insight and market-ready innovation — a gap that often determines whether breakthroughs remain academic or become broadly available clinical solutions.
Innovation, Health
