Test drive

Inito aims to revolutionise home diagnostics with biotech and AI 200

- Nirmal Jovial

As they paddled through the water on a kayak during an adventure trip, Aayush Rai and Varun A.V. had a conversation that changed everything. "We were working for Siemens, which is a large medtech company, and it became clear they wouldn't sell anything for less than a few crores," Rai recalls.

"That was when we realised if we wanted to create something genuinely impactful, we'd have to do it ourselves. So we decided to leave our jobs and build something of our own." The result was Inito, a healthtech startup which introduced the world's first-and still the only fertility monitor. It is capable of measuring all four fertility hormones on a single test strip.

In November 2020, this monitor a compact device that enables smartphones to perform lab-grade fertility diagnostic tests at home-earned regulatory approval from the US Food and Drug Administration.

Inito's vision, however, goes beyond fertility. "We are here to build tools that allow individuals to understand what is happening in their body," says Rai. "Our core vision is to create a device or platform that lets you perform dozens of diagnostic tests at home, giving you access to your own data.

Fertility is just the starting point of that journey." At Siemens, Rai and Varunboth IIT alumni-worked in the R&D centre, which tackled a wide range of projects.