Medical devices & diagnostics · Cancer screening
Adialante
A mobile, per scan MRI service built to bring prostate cancer screening into urology clinics that cannot buy or house a scanner. No FDA clearance yet, and the seed round is still open.
Eight weeks from a bare magnet to a scan
In late March 2026, Efraín Torres moved to California to join Y Combinator's Spring batch. By demo day, his team had turned what the company describes as a bare magnet into a functional MRI system generating preclinical data, and had cleared its letter of intent goal.
The system does not use liquid helium to cool its magnet, the way conventional MRI scanners do. Per the company and Twin Cities Business, the scanner is about 80 percent lighter than a traditional machine, uses roughly 60 percent less power and about 50 percent less hardware. Adialante will not sell that hardware. It intends to own and operate it, driving the scanner to a clinic in a mobile trailer and billing a flat fee per completed scan.
Torres has said he is waiting on FDA clearance before the mobile units begin seeing patients.
The gap it is aimed at
MRI is often called the most sensitive tool for detecting cancer early, but Adialante's framing of the problem is blunt: a conventional scanner costs millions, takes months to install, and needs staff most independent clinics lack. In the company's words on Y Combinator's site: "We only use MRI when it's too late."
The first target is prostate imaging. Guidelines call for an MRI before many prostate biopsies, and the company puts the number of men who need one at over one million a year in the US. Most urology clinics cannot offer an MRI on site, so patients are referred out for months. Adialante's pitch: bring the scanner to the clinic, let it bill insurance, and collect a flat fee per scan.
Two engineers who met on a dorm floor
Torres and Parker Jenkins met as biomedical engineering undergraduates at Marquette University, on the same floor of their engineering dorm. Torres grew up in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood, a first generation Mexican American who has said the gap he saw between his neighborhood and the wealthier high school he attended on scholarship shaped his career. "I'm a first-generation middle school, high school, college and Ph.D. graduate," he told Marquette Today in 2026, describing how it "started to establish my goal to minimize the differential as much as possible for communities like mine."
Both went to graduate school at the University of Minnesota, studying under MRI physicist Michael Garwood, now an advisor to the company. There, a class discussion of disruptive innovation theory reordered his plans, Torres has said. "I had this crystallizing moment in E-Lead discussing incremental and disruptive innovation," he told Marquette Today, recalling thinking, 'this is what I want to do.'
They founded Adialante in 2023, went through the University of Minnesota's I-Corps and Walleye Tank programs, and built a technique called frequency modulated Rabi encoded echoes, or FREE, which encodes MRI signals with radiofrequency fields instead of gradient coils. "Our mission is to develop affordable and effective MRI systems that everyone has access to," Torres said in a 2025 writeup from the NSF's Great Lakes I-Corps hub. "However, 90% of the world lacks access to technology because of its current cost and complexity."
A pivot forced by a supply chain
Adialante's first commercial target was not a full body scanner. Both NSF SBIR awards, a 2023 Phase I grant and a 2025 Phase II grant, funded a head only MRI scanner, first for pediatric imaging and later for rural brain imaging. Torres has since called that product dead. It depended on the metal neodymium, almost entirely sourced from China, and when China suspended those exports, Torres told Twin Cities Business, "The project essentially died because we couldn't get neodymium."
The company shifted to consulting work with other MRI vendors to stay afloat, a stretch Torres calls "cockroach mode," while a nine month pause in its SBIR funding left it unable to pay itself. It rebuilt around the full body, helium free design it now markets. "We are going to operate at every single urology clinic and breast cancer clinic in the country," Torres told the magazine.
From accelerator to relocation
Before Y Combinator, Adialante went through Fogarty Innovation's medtech accelerator program in the Bay Area. "We are two young individuals with a strong desire to make a large impact in healthcare accessibility," Torres said in a 2024 Fogarty writeup.
Joining Y Combinator's Spring 2026 batch pulled the company west for good. "We have raised factors more than we thought we could raise in two weeks, because [Y Combinator] basically gave us permission to be who we are," Torres told Twin Cities Business in July 2026. He plans to move the company permanently to California, though he may keep manufacturing in the Midwest.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| NSF SBIR grants | Phase I award of $275,000 (2023) and Phase II award of $1,186,778 (2025), both to ADIALANTE L.L.C. with Efraín Torres as principal investigator, for $1,461,778 combined per SBIR.gov. | Public record |
| What the grants funded | Both awards describe a head only MRI scanner for pediatric and later rural brain imaging. Torres has told Twin Cities Business that design was abandoned after losing access to Chinese sourced neodymium, and the company rebuilt around a full body scanner now marketed for cancer screening. | Differs from current product |
| FDA status | No 510(k) or PMA record found for Adialante. The company has told Twin Cities Business it is awaiting FDA clearance before transporting its mobile scanner to independent clinics. | Not found |
| Peer reviewed literature | Efraín Torres is a co-author, with an Adialante affiliation, on a September 2026 review of radiofrequency field gradient encoding, and on three 2024 to 2025 papers on portable MRI research ethics. None report clinical performance data for Adialante's own scanner. | Public record |
| Patents | The company cites two issued US patents, numbers 12,625,209 and 12,372,595, in its Y Combinator launch post. A press writeup of the same launch gives the second number as 12,372,395. | Company-stated |
| Clinic traction | The company's site claims 11 clinics reserved and $19.75 million in signed LOIs. Its Y Combinator launch post, earlier in the batch, cited 6 clinics and $12.75 million. Twin Cities Business reported $19.5 million and 11 clinics in July 2026. No named clinics or scans have been reported. | Company-stated |
Read plainly: the federal grant money is real and matches the company's own SBIR filings, but it funded a head only scanner design the company says it no longer builds. The full body, per scan product it now markets has no FDA clearance, no named clinical customers, and no published clinical validation. The letters of intent measure clinic interest, not completed sales.
What to watch
- Whether Adialante obtains FDA clearance before moving its mobile scanner to clinics.
- Whether the LOIs convert into billed, insurance reimbursed scans at a named clinic.
- Whether a new federal award appears tied to the current full body scanner, since the existing grants funded the abandoned head only design.
- Whether the seed round the company told Twin Cities Business it would close "in a few weeks" shows up as a Form D on SEC EDGAR.
In their words
“Our mission is to develop affordable and effective MRI systems that everyone has access to. MRIs are one of the most powerful and robust diagnostic medical tools that we have. However, 90% of the world lacks access to technology because of its current cost and complexity.”
Efraín Torres, CEO and co-founder, NSF Great Lakes I-Corps Hub writeup, 2025 · Independent
“We defined disruptive innovation, when something reshapes an entire industry and it’s world changing. I vividly remember sitting there and thinking, ‘this is what I want to do.’”
Efraín Torres, Marquette Today, Apr 23, 2026 · Independent
“We have raised factors more than we thought we could raise in two weeks, because [Y Combinator] basically gave us permission to be who we are.”
Efraín Torres, Twin Cities Business, Jul 8, 2026 · Independent
“The project essentially died because we couldn’t get neodymium.”
Efraín Torres, on the head only scanner, Twin Cities Business, Jul 8, 2026 · Independent
“We are going to operate at every single urology clinic and breast cancer clinic in the country.”
Efraín Torres, Twin Cities Business, Jul 8, 2026 · Independent
“I’m a first-generation middle school, high school, college and Ph.D. graduate.”
Efraín Torres, Marquette Today, Apr 23, 2026 · Independent
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordNSF SBIR Phase I award 2323231
- Public recordNSF SBIR Phase II award 2449556
- Public recordAdialante L.L.C. firm profile
- Public recordRadiofrequency field gradient encoding methods and applications for magnetic resonance imaging
- Public recordScientists’ perspectives on ethical issues in research with emerging portable neuroimaging technology
- Public recordEthical, legal, and policy challenges in field based neuroimaging research using emerging portable MRI technologies
- Public recordConducting Research with Highly Portable MRI in Community Settings: A Practical Guide to Navigating Ethical Issues and ELSI Checklist
- IndependentI-Corps Alumni, Adialante LLC, awarded $1.18 Million SBIR Phase II grant to develop MRI Technology
- IndependentTransforming MRI Technology: Adialante’s Vision for Accessible Healthcare
- IndependentAdialante Turns to Silicon Valley to Scale Its University of Minnesota-Born MRI Innovation
- IndependentIgniting change in cancer screening: Alumnus Dr. Efraín Torres’ entrepreneurial journey to servant leadership
- IndependentAdialante Launches Mobile MRI to Bring Cancer Screening to Clinics
- IndependentEfraín Torres: Making MRI’s Accessible to All
- IndependentBME PhD students’ start-up receives highly competitive NSF award
- CompanyAdialante company page and launch post
- CompanyAdialante website
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
