ECHO Spotlight Series: AiVALON Health Technologies

Entrepreneurship for Cardiovascular Health Opportunities (ECHO) is a 12-month national training program supporting cardiovascular research commercialization through education, mentorship, networking, and funding. Led by a diverse team of experts, ECHO fosters successful startups in cardiovascular health, culminating in ECHO PITCH, a pitch competition offering up to $250,000 in funding.

With the 2024-2025 ECHO cohort preparing to compete at ECHO PITCH on October 15, 2025 (if you’d like to join our live audience, please see more details here), we took the opportunity to sit down with  the venture finalists to learn more about them, their commercialization process, and how the ECHO program has helped their entrepreneurship journey so far. Today we’re speaking with the team at AiVALON, including Dr. Mahya Khaki (co-founder and CEO) and Dr. Matthias Friedrich (co-founder and CMO).

Tell us a little bit about AiVALON

AiVALON Health Technologies is shifting the paradigm from reactive, late-stage cardiovascular diagnostics to proactive, early-stage screening and monitoring.

Developed from years of research conducted at McGill University, AiVALON offers a non-invasive, 2-minute stress test that can be performed from the comfort of home using only a smartphone. Through a guided breathing maneuver that gently challenges the heart, our technology detects early signs of dysfunction – making cardiovascular prevention more accessible, scalable, and effective.

What was the inspiration behind creating Ally?

Too often, we miss the 10-year window when heart disease can still be prevented. In North America, over 200 million people have at least one risk factor for heart disease, yet 80% don’t get checked in time. That’s why we’re passionate about moving from today’s reactive healthcare to Medicine 3.0 – a new era where people and healthcare work together to stop disease before it starts.

Ally was born from the belief that prevention should be simple, accurate, and a part of everyday life. It takes our years of research on revealing early signals of cardiovascular risk and puts it right in people’s hands. All you need is a smartphone – just a quick, reliable test you can do anywhere, anytime. It’s about empowering people to take charge of their heart health before problems begin.

At AiVALON, our vision is to be a lifelong companion in heart health. We want to help people stay ahead of cardiovascular disease and live longer, healthier lives.

Can you explain how the technology for Ally works to help individuals monitor their heart health? 

Think of it like a car inspection to uncover hidden issues – sometimes you need to rev the engine! The same goes for your heart.

At AiVALON, we’ve created a proprietary 2-minute stress test. The test is a simple, guided breathing exercise designed to gently “stress” the heart and reveal early signs of trouble before symptoms appear.

Ally uses the sensors already built into any smartphone to capture detailed cardiovascular and breathing signals during this exercise. Our proprietary AI model then analyzes these signals, extracting key features and combining them with personal metrics to deliver an individualized heart health report, with around 90% accuracy in detecting early signs of heart disease.

It’s quick, it’s easy, and it’s accessible anywhere – turning your smartphone into a powerful heart health companion.

What are the next steps in the clinical development pathway for this AI technology? 

Our vision has always been to make Ally accessible to everyone – not locked behind prescriptions or hospital walls. While we plan to enter the market without formal regulatory approval at first, we’re building strong clinical partnerships to validate and continuously refine our AI model for cardiovascular health assessment.

Currently, we’re preparing to launch a clinical pilot with a leading cardiovascular foundation in Latin America, adding to our research base from McGill University. Together, these studies will give us the robust data we need to launch in the private sector with confidence.

Clinical research doesn’t stop once the product is launched. We’ll keep running studies to strengthen our science, grow our capabilities, and explore regulatory pathways that could open even more doors for Ally worldwide. Our regulatory pathway will begin with prescription approval, followed by securing over the counter (OTC) approval. This ensures we stay true to our vision of making heart health screening accessible to everyone.

What has been the biggest benefit of being part of the ECHO program so far? 

Through ECHO, we’ve had the opportunity to learn directly from seasoned entrepreneurs, industry leaders, and innovation experts. These sessions have been invaluable in helping us sharpen our vision and advance our startup journey.

Beyond the conversations, ECHO has helped us build essential skills and networks, covering everything from ideation and pitching to team-building and value propositions. In addition, the program gave us the credibility to take our cardiovascular health mission further.

ECHO also connected us with H2i, where we gained a great mentor, leveraged their network, tapped into their clinical validation expertise, and explored new fundraising opportunities.

How does AiVALON plan to expand or evolve in the next five to ten years?  

At AiVALON, we aim to become a global leader in digital health SaaS (Software as a Service) for preventing and detecting early-stage heart disease. We’re starting with private clinics, expanding to insurers, and pursuing regulatory approval for remote monitoring, especially for those at risk. Ultimately, we envision our test being available anywhere, for anyone to use anytime.

ABOUT ECHO

ECHO is a specialized entrepreneurship training and mentorship program led by veteran entrepreneurs and consultants across a variety of sectors. Ventures participating in this 12-month online training program receive entrepreneurship training, mentorship, partnership and funding opportunities; support towards creating and growing their high-impact, health-focused startup; and tools to accelerate the translation of their health innovations from the bench to the bedside.

ECHO was launched in 2018 under the University of Toronto’s Translational Biology and Engineering Program (TBEP) at the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research. To date, ECHO has supported 178 participants and 69 ventures, awarding over $1.5 million to help transform cutting-edge cardiovascular research into real-world solutions.

Building on this success, ECHO rebranded this year to the Entrepreneurship for Commercialization of Health Opportunities (ECHO) program, with expansion beyond its initial focus on cardiovascular  health to include all areas of health research and care. ECHO is now led by the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, in collaboration with the Translational Biology & Engineering Program (TBEP), and with support from the Health Innovation Hub (H2i), Temerty Medicine’s health accelerator. To learn more, please visit https://rhse.temertymedicine.utoronto.ca/ECHO.