While many of their peers were spending summer vacation at the beach or catching up on sleep, two ambitious high school students were busy hatching a startup that could transform the way doctors detect cognitive decline in older adults.
Rohan Kalahasty, 18, and Sai Mattapalli, 17, first connected several years ago as freshman attending one of the top high schools in the nation, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. The two bonded over their shared interest in technology and artificial intelligence. That connection would eventually blossom into Vytal, a company aimed at making eye-tracking technology easily accessible for identifying ocular biomarkers that may signal Alzheimer’s or other forms of neurodegenerative disease.
“Eye tracking for brain health is not new,” said Kalahasty, citing existing – albeit expensive – technologies that track eye movements to monitor cognitive function. What makes Vytal’s approach novel is its simplicity and affordability.
Unlike bulky eye-tracking equipment costing upwards of $4,000, Vytal leverages the ubiquitous laptop or smartphone camera to perform rapid eye tracking and biometric calculation from the comfort of your home in mere minutes.
Kalahasty first devised Vytal’s concept during a three year internship at Harvard Medical School where he was introduced to gaze tracking. Kalahasty recognized that our eyes provide a real-time “window” into moment-to-moment brain function and that subtle shifts in gaze patterns can thus signal emerging neurological issues. After creating initial prototypes of the product and filing a provisional, Kalahasty approached Mattapalli about pushing the idea as a startup. Mattapalli himself had extensive experience in the neuroscience realm, having performed high level research at Georgetown.
Vytal leverages the ubiquitous laptop or smartphone camera to perform rapid eye tracking and biometric calculation from the comfort of your home
Kalahasty and Mattapalli hustled throughout highschool to gather the experience necessary to make Vytal a success. Besides their extensive research at top level institutions like Harvard and MIT, both of them have experience leading incubations at multi billion dollar companies such as Roivant and YC backed startups.
The teens were driven by a desire to help the elderly, a demographic often overlooked in the tech world’s focus on young users. “With conditions like Alzheimer’s, early detection can really help manage disease progression,” said Kalahasty, whose family includes several doctors. “We want to empower people with that knowledge.” The duo’s seemingly preternatural drive belies their age. They often sacrifice schoolwork and socializing to propel Vytal forward, believing deeply in its mission. In just a week, the startups beta testing list has acquired over 1000 sign ups, and they are getting ready to perform a rigorous round of user testing at a local retirement home.
The idea for Vytal was sparked when Kalahasty and Mattapalli recognized a gap between academic research discoveries and real-world implementation. “Groundbreaking work is published every day that never gets implemented in the real world,” said Mattapalli, reflecting on his own work in the past. The pair saw an opportunity to bridge that gap by commercializing eye-tracking technology to aid diagnosis.
Their initial prototype used deep learning to directly analyze gaze patterns and detect specific diseases. But after consulting medical experts, Kalahasty and Mattapalli pivoted to providing more general biomarker scores to supplement doctors’ evaluations instead of replacing them outright. “Doctors are undoubtedly the biggest skeptics of AI on the planet,” noted Mattapalli, given their deep clinical expertise. By positioning Vytal’s product to simply offer additional data points, the technology becomes an aid rather than a threat.
This pragmatic pivot exemplifies Kalahasty and Mattapalli’s nuanced understanding of product-market fit, remarkable for students their age. It also led them to prioritize launching quickly over perfecting their algorithms. “We realized we were going about it the wrong way,” said Mattapalli, describing an epiphany after a year of heads-down technical development. The founders regrouped and focused on crafting a viable business model centered around “iteration before perfection” as Mattapalli put it.
Capitalizing on Vytal’s expansive global perspective, Mattapalli tapped into the surging wave of international startup funding, notably in India, by strategically directing their pitch efforts to overseas investors. This calculated approach yielded remarkable results, as evidenced by a $100,000 pre-seed round led by partners at Powerhouse Ventures to a subsequent seed funding round amounting to $1.2 million. Vytal is currently valued at $12.5 million, firmly cementing its trajectory of success in the competitive startup landscape.
As they finalize their product, the duo is opening beta signups online and pursuing academic and industry feedback. Their unique cross-generational approach could provide inspiration in an aging society.
Once Vytal launches, it could become a vital tool for detecting cognitive decline early enough to help guide care and treatment decisions as well as serve as a way to quantify brain health.
And for two busy high school students, that impact makes all those 3 AM calls and school absences more than worthwhile. As Kalahasty put it, “We may be young, but we hope to make a real difference with this technology.”
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