{"entity":{"id":"nearwave","kind":"company","name":"NearWave","aka":[],"tldr":"NearWave makes a handheld near-infrared scanner that shows within days whether a breast cancer is responding to chemotherapy before surgery, so patients are not left on a treatment that is failing.","summary":"NearWave's handheld device uses near-infrared diffuse optical imaging to measure haemoglobin, oxygenation, water and lipid content in breast tumours, tracking metabolic changes early in neoadjuvant chemotherapy to predict pathological response weeks before imaging or surgery would. It is a University of Notre Dame spin-out with clinical studies at US cancer centres. The device is investigational; predictive performance has been reported in early studies rather than a pivotal trial.","asOf":"2026-09-10","links":[{"label":"Y Combinator profile","url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/nearwave"},{"label":"Official website","url":"https://nearwave.co"}],"tags":["yc"],"related":[],"cancers":["tnbc","breast-hr-positive","breast-her2-positive"],"sections":["imaging","devices"],"technologies":["optical-imaging"],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"hq":"South Bend, IN","country":"US","companyType":"devices","website":"https://nearwave.co","stage":"startup","ycBatch":"W22","investors":["y-combinator"],"funding":[]},"route":"/companies/nearwave/","neighbours":{"cancer":[{"id":"breast-her2-positive","kind":"cancer","name":"HER2-positive breast cancer","route":"/cancers/breast-her2-positive/"},{"id":"breast-hr-positive","kind":"cancer","name":"HR-positive / HER2-negative breast cancer","route":"/cancers/breast-hr-positive/"},{"id":"tnbc","kind":"cancer","name":"Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC)","route":"/cancers/tnbc/"}],"section":[{"id":"devices","kind":"section","name":"Devices & Physical Therapies","route":"/fronts/devices/"},{"id":"imaging","kind":"section","name":"Imaging","route":"/fronts/imaging/"}],"technology":[{"id":"optical-imaging","kind":"technology","name":"Optical & fluorescence imaging","route":"/technologies/optical-imaging/"}],"company":[{"id":"y-combinator","kind":"company","name":"Y Combinator","route":"/companies/y-combinator/"}]}}