Making stroke obsolete · Seed, 2026

You're ok.
Something that,
for millions of families,
arrives one minute
too late.

code:blue is passive, on-device AI that watches for the earliest signs of stroke — and routes help before a patient even knows they need it. Built by AI researchers and engineers who shipped health features to hundreds of millions of people.

A granddaughter showing her grandmother how to use a phone — the quiet moment code:blue is designed to protect.
Passive · On-device · Always on
A quiet moment, protected
The check that runs in the background of every call, every message, every day.
Team pedigree
UCSF Health UC Berkeley Samsung Apple FDA Counsel Microsoft
Thesis · 01

Every forty seconds, a stroke begins. The first hour decides whether the next thirty years look like recovery — or a second life spent in rehabilitation.

For decades the question has been how quickly can we reach a hospital. We think the better question is how quickly the hospital can reach you.

The answer is already in your pocket: a camera, a microphone, a neural engine. We taught it to do the one thing an ER team can't — notice the first second.

Ashmita Kumar
Founder & CEO
The opportunity

A $700B problem the existing system can't reach in time.

Stroke is the world's most expensive preventable emergency — and the one category where a thirty-second head start rewrites the bill, the outcome, and the rest of a life.

$700B
Global annual cost of stroke care and lost productivity.
World Stroke Org · 2024
12.2M
New strokes worldwide each year. One every forty seconds in the U.S.
AHA · 2024
$68K
Per-patient per year cost — the number insurers price against every day.
AHA · 2024
62%
Of Americans cannot identify the warning signs when they appear.
CDC · 2023
The product

A neurologist's first glance — running on a phone that was already in the room.

An older man sitting in a warm, book-lined living room on a video call with family. code:blue runs quietly in the background.
Private by default
Running quietly
Status
You’re ok
01

Passive by design.

No wearables. No new hardware. code:blue uses the existing camera and microphone on any phone, laptop, or webcam — quietly, wherever you are.

02

Private by default.

Nothing leaves without your permission. If code:blue detects something, you choose who gets notified — a family member, a caregiver, or both.

03

Clinically grounded.

Models trained on real stroke footage in partnership with UCSF Health. Every detection model is reviewed by our clinical advisors before deployment.

04

Seconds to help.

When code:blue detects a possible stroke, it notifies your trusted circle and contacts emergency services — with your location and condition already shared before help arrives.

The team

The rarely-assembled group.

Building a product that sits between clinical medicine, consumer software, and the FDA requires a specific, unusual mix of people. We went and got them.

Ashmita Kumar
Ashmita Kumar
Founder & CEO
UC Berkeley — EECS, Business, Data Science
UCI — Neuroscience research
Westly Prize · UC Launch Grand Prize
Mike Chop
Mike Chop
CTO
Apple — health sharing, fall detection
Samsung — ambient health, memory augmentation
200M+ users. Shipped.
Dr. Martin Gershon
Dr. Martin Gershon
Clinical & regulatory
Clinical neurologist
Former FDA attorney
Harvard · Hopkins · Columbia
Dr. Taniya Mishra
Dr. Taniya Mishra
AI advisor
Founder & CEO, SureStart
88+ patents in speech & vision AI
VentureBeat Women in AI finalist
Scott Nisbet
Scott Nisbet
Advisor · Capital
CEO & Co-founder, ArionBio
Secretary, Berkeley 100 Foundation
Berkeley SkyDeck advisor
Gail Gannon
Gail Gannon
Advisor · GTM
CEO, Ensanté Tech for Good
Director, Berkeley Neurotech Collider
Professor, UCSF · Stanford · Harvard
A full cap table, IP position, and regulatory roadmap are available under NDA.
Request the data room
Recognition

Early signal, from the people who know where to look.

In the news
"One of the Bay Area teams quietly rebuilding what the first minutes of a stroke look like."
CBS News · Watch the segment →
Westly Prize
2024 · Social innovation
Westly Prize winner
UC Launch Accelerator
2024 · Accelerator
UC Launch — Grand Prize
Supported by

Institutions that have looked at this problem for a long time.

UCSF Health
Microsoft
Berkeley SkyDeck
Endeavor
Get involved

We're closing our seed. We'd like to talk.

If you invest in healthcare, early-stage AI, or consumer devices that touch regulated medicine — or if you run a health system thinking about pre-hospital triage — there's a short window to get on the right side of this one.

Tweaks