Medical devices & diagnostics · Neurostimulation
Volt Health
A wearable electrostimulation device pitched at Y Combinator in 2017 to treat incontinence. Nine years on, the public record holds no FDA submission, no registered trial, no patent and no working website.
One paragraph in March 2017
On March 21, 2017, TechCrunch published its list of all 51 startups that presented at the second Y Combinator Demo Day of the Winter 2017 batch. Between a robotic 3D printing factory and a database company sat one paragraph about a medical device.
The entry called Volt Health “An electrical stimulation medical device.” The pitch read: “Volt is an electrostimulation wearable to treat diseases like incontinence.” Two more sentences did the heavy lifting. “The founder has already taken six medical devices to market, including the Cool Sculpting device that sold for billions.” And a market: incontinence “affects 25 million people and is a $25 billion market.”
Five weeks earlier, Allergan had agreed to buy Zeltiq Aesthetics, the company that built CoolSculpting, in a $2.475 billion all-cash deal. Zeltiq was founded by Volt Health’s founder. The claim on stage was not a forecast. It was a receipt.
That paragraph is close to the last thing the public record says about Volt Health.
The problem it named
Urinary incontinence is common and under-treated. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases puts it plainly: “Researchers estimate that approximately half of all women experience UI.” For men, NIDDK says as many as 1 in 3 over the age of 65 may lose urine by accident. The 25 million figure in the pitch is smaller than those federal estimates imply, and the pitch did not say what it counted.
The regulatory ground is well mapped. The FDA already has a device class for the kind of product Volt Health described: 21 CFR 876.5330, product code QAJ, named “Cutaneous Electrode Stimulator For Urinary Incontinence.” A neighbouring class, 876.5310, product code NAM, covers a non-implanted peripheral nerve stimulator for the same indication. Both are class II and reachable by 510(k).
Others have walked those paths since. Elidah cleared its Elitone device under QAJ on February 11, 2019, a separate urge incontinence version on February 24, 2023, and a version for men on January 23, 2026. Avation Medical cleared the Vivally System under NAM on April 3, 2023, with a registered study, NCT04547920, listed on the clearance record. BlueWind Medical won a De Novo on August 16, 2023 for an implanted tibial device, creating a new class at 876.5305. The category is real, regulated and moving. Volt Health is absent from all of it.
The founder
Scott Wolf, MD, is not a first-timer. Y Combinator’s own listing records that he founded Aerin Medical, co-founded Zeltiq Aesthetics, was a partner at Prospect Venture Partners and a vice president at Frazier Healthcare Ventures, and took his MD at George Washington University and his BA at the University of Pennsylvania.
His route into devices was oblique. “I like to think of new ideas and, was always interested in science and science fiction,” he told the Mastering Medical Device podcast in 2023, explaining why practising medicine did not fit. He ran a Medtronic-backed incubator in Minneapolis, moved into venture capital, then talked a Seattle firm into funding a fat reduction idea he had licensed from inventors at Massachusetts General Hospital. That became Zeltiq.
His screening test for an idea is a high bar, and he says so. “This has to be something that can change the way medicine is practiced, that can make things, easier and more effective for the patient,” he said in the same interview. He is equally plain that the bar is not always cleared: “So some have not worked, for various reasons, either funding, we couldn’t get funding.”
A website that told a different story
Volt Health predates the YC pitch. A Palo Alto Longevity Prize team listing published on September 16, 2014 names VOLT HEALTH, led by Scott Wolf, MD, in Mountain View, California, affiliated with an entity called Volts Medical, working on an approach labelled Inflammatory Tissue.
The company’s own site said the same thing, and not the YC thing. Internet Archive captures of volthealth.com from July 2018 and December 2021 both carry the page title “Longevity | Volt Health” and the description “Therapies for longevity and metabolism.” The keywords tag reads: Aging, Longevity, Obesity. Incontinence does not appear.
The last capture that returned a normal page is dated January 28, 2022. From March 15, 2022 onward, every capture returns 404. PitchBook logs a secondary transaction on March 1, 2022, between those two dates. Tracxn classifies the company as deadpooled. The Y Combinator directory entry is still live, still carrying the 2017 pitch.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| FDA submissions | No 510(k), PMA or De Novo naming Volt Health as of Sep 24, 2026, and no establishment registration. The relevant class already exists: 21 CFR 876.5330, product code QAJ. | Not found |
| Registered trials | No study on ClinicalTrials.gov sponsored by or naming Volt Health. | Not found |
| Patents | A Justia assignee search for Volt Health returns no patents. Scott J. Wolf’s inventor listing shows 12 grants and applications, all filed by Aerin Medical, the most recent published Aug 6, 2026. | Not found |
| Federal grants and papers | No NIH or NSF award. NIH RePORTER returns zero projects for the organisation name. No PubMed record for the company or a product. | Not found |
| Accelerator | Y Combinator, Winter 2017. TechCrunch listed the company among the 51 startups presenting on Demo Day 2, Mar 21, 2017. PitchBook records an accelerator deal on the same date. | Public record |
| Market claim | The pitch states incontinence “affects 25 million people and is a $25 billion market.” NIDDK estimates roughly half of all women experience urinary incontinence. The pitch does not define its 25 million. | Company-stated |
| Company website | Captures from Jul 2018 and Dec 2021 describe “Therapies for longevity and metabolism,” keywords Aging, Longevity, Obesity. Neither incontinence nor migraine appears. | Differs from the pitch |
| Current status | Tracxn: “Volt Health is a deadpooled company based in Mountain View (United States), founded in 2015 by Scott Wolf.” PitchBook still shows it as Private. The YC directory entry remains published. | Data providers |
Read plainly: there is a pitch, an accelerator batch, a founder with a real track record elsewhere, and then nothing. No submission, no study, no patent, no grant, no paper. A device concept for incontinence that never entered any of the systems that would show whether it worked. The one document the company published for itself described a different business from the one it pitched, and stopped resolving in early 2022.
What to watch
- A 510(k) under product code QAJ or NAM, the two classes the FDA uses for non-implanted urinary incontinence stimulators. A filing under either would be the first regulatory sign of life.
- A patent publication naming Volt Health as assignee. US applications publish about 18 months after filing, so anything filed before 2025 would already be visible.
- Any change to the Y Combinator directory entry, which still carries the March 2017 pitch verbatim.
- Where Scott Wolf files next. Every patent record under his name through 2026 runs through Aerin Medical.
In their words
“Volt is an electrostimulation wearable to treat diseases like incontinence.”
Y Combinator listing, quoted by TechCrunch, March 21, 2017 · Company pitch
“The founder has already taken six medical devices to market, including the Cool Sculpting device that sold for billions.”
Y Combinator listing, quoted by TechCrunch, March 21, 2017 · Company pitch
“Scott’s primary interest is in how aging affects the physiological and physical functions of the aging body and developing therapies to treat the resulting disease processes.”
Palo Alto Longevity Prize listing for VOLT HEALTH, September 2014 · Third party
“I like to think of new ideas and, was always interested in science and science fiction.”
Scott Wolf, MD, Mastering Medical Device podcast, 2023 · Interview
“This has to be something that can change the way medicine is practiced, that can make things, easier and more effective for the patient.”
Scott Wolf, MD, on his test for a device idea, Mastering Medical Device podcast, 2023 · Interview
“So some have not worked, for various reasons, either funding, we couldn’t get funding.”
Scott Wolf, MD, on his six startups, Mastering Medical Device podcast, 2023 · Interview
“Therapies for longevity and metabolism.”
volthealth.com homepage description, Internet Archive captures of 2018 and 2021 · Company site
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordFDA device classifications QAJ (876.5330) and NAM (876.5310)
- Public record510(k) K183585, Elitone Device, Elidah, Inc.
- Public record510(k) K220454, Vivally System, Avation Medical, Inc.
- Public recordDe Novo DEN220073, Revi System, BlueWind Medical Ltd.
- Public recordDefinition and Facts for Bladder Control Problems
- Public recordWayback Machine capture index for volthealth.com
- Public recordvolthealth.com homepage captures, title and meta description
- Public recordPatent assignee search for Volt Health, no results
- Public recordPatents by inventor Scott J. Wolf
- Public recordNIH RePORTER search, organisation Volt Health, zero results
- IndependentAll 51 startups that debuted at Y Combinator W17 Demo Day 2
- IndependentAllergan Buys Zeltiq Aesthetics For Nearly $2.5 Billion
- InterviewHow a Serial Entrepreneur Identifies and Evaluates Product Ideas
- IndependentVOLT HEALTH team listing and video
- Data providerVolt Health company profile
- Data providerVolt Health company profile
- CompanyVolt Health directory entry and founder biography
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
