UT Accelerate Fund invests in PreTel, a medtech company focused on prenatal health
PreTel is also the previous first place winner of the PYA Ballard Innovation Award, and recipient of $50,000 worth of cash and in-kind services.
The University of Tennessee Research Foundation’s (UTRF) Accelerate Fund has invested in PreTel, Inc., a Tennessee-based medical device startup developing wearable sensors to help physicians distinguish true labor from false labor. The sensors can also monitor labor progression and guide the safe dosing of labor-inducing medication.
Developed at the UT Health Sciences by Dr. Roger Young, an OB-GYN and professor, PreTeL‘s technology has the potential to reduce unnecessary cesarean deliveries and better support clinicians in timely interventions to improve outcomes for mothers and their babies.
UTRF licensed the IP to PreTel in 2015 and filed several patent applications related to the technology, resulting in three issued U.S. patents.
Since its founding, PreTeL has raised more than $1.6 million in non-dilutive small business innovation research (SBIR) funding and $1.5 million in seed–stage dilutive funding. PreTeL also previously received a $50,000 prize for winning first place in PYA’s 2025 Ballard Innovation Award.
“UTRF is pleased to support PreTeL through an investment from the Accelerate Fund. This investment underscores our commitment to backing great ideas that can have a tremendous impact in the marketplace,” said UTRF President and CEO Maha Krishnamurthy. “I want to thank the Accelerate Fund’s Investment Advisory Committee members for their guidance and feedback during the evaluation and investment process.”
What is the UTRF Accelerate Fund?
Making investments since 2023, the Accelerate Fund provides pre-seed and seed investment to support high-potential startups that bring UT innovations to market.
Previous investments include Orion Therapeutics, Inc., a biotechnology startup developing next-generation RNA medicines through a novel drug delivery platform, and VisualizAI, an artificial intelligence company developing tools to help health care providers streamline claims processing.
PreTeL is the Accelerate Fund’s third investment.
“I am grateful for the support from UTRF and the Tennessee entrepreneurial ecosystem,” said Marc Finch, PreTeL‘s CEO. “This technology is extremely important for saving both infants‘ and mothers’ lives within a very underfunded area in the very competitive healthcare technology space. This investment increases our visibility across the Southeast and helps position us for future fundraising as we continue advancing this important technology.”
With this investment, PreTeL plans to complete its regulatory assessment and begin clinical trials as it advances the technology toward commercialization.
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