Elijah Downs - TechTwin

Founder name: Elijah Downs

Startup name: TechTwin 

MSc Bioinformatics current student 

Describe your entrepreneurial journey in three words: Fast. Humbling. Collaborative

What is the startup idea?

TechTwin builds a personal digital twin from your wearable, biomarker and genomic data. Instead of just reporting what your body did yesterday, it forecasts how you’ll respond to training, sleep and recovery, so you can test a plan and see the expected results before you commit to it. Our open beta has been live since September on iPhone, Mac and web.

Tell us more about the startup 

I studied Nanobiology at TU Delft, then came to Edinburgh for my MSc in Bioinformatics. I met Lachlan Hay, a former MMA fighter and personal trainer doing his MSc in Entrepreneurship, through mutual friends. We both wanted to build a startup, so we teamed up on a shared business course to see whether our work ethics matched. They did. The idea we developed there eventually became TechTwin. Wearables collect huge amounts of data but only describe the past, and we wanted to build something that forecasts what comes next. I build the technology and Lachlan leads the commercial side.

What motivates you as an entrepreneur? 

Building something I’m proud of and seeing people get real value from it. I also like the freedom of not working a 9–5. When you’re obsessed with what you’re building, long hours don’t feel like a burden. When a beta user tells me TechTwin changed how they plan their training, that’s the best part of the job.

How do you define success? What success have you seen so far? 

Success means people coming back to TechTwin because it changes what they do, not because it looks good. 

So far:

• Won the Startup Summer Accelerator (SUSA) (£750) and received a £3,000 SUSA award and a £500 Venture Development Fund grant through Edinburgh Innovations
• Launched a public open beta in September 2026 with Apple Watch, WHOOP, Oura and Fitbit integrations. WHOOP has raised our API user cap.
• Selected to represent the University of Edinburgh at the UNA Europa pitch competition at KU Leuven

Selected for Round One (Scotland’s pre-seed readiness programme), Google for Startups Immersion, and the first cohort of the MotionLabs SportsTech Accelerator

What piece of advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs? 

Start before you feel ready. If you wait for the right moment or the perfect idea, you’ll never begin. Even if it fails, you’ll learn more in a year of building than in almost any other way. The same goes for the product: put it in front of real users while it’s still rough. You’ll learn more from 30 people using an early version than from months of polishing it alone. And make sure every claim you make can survive a follow-up question.

What role has Edinburgh Innovations played in your entrepreneurial journey? 

EI gave us our first funding. All of our money so far, £4,250 in non-dilutive awards, came through EI programmes, which let us build and launch the beta without giving up equity. They also introduced us to the RBS accelerator, where we work most days. SUSA really encourages you to take the leap, and having that support behind us made it so much easier to commit.

What’s next? 

We’re incorporating in November. Through the MotionLabs SportsTech Accelerator, we’ll be testing TechTwin with athletes and using their feedback to sharpen the product. We’re also in early conversations with investors who want to see more traction, so growing and retaining beta users is our main focus. Alongside that, we’ll keep validating the forecasting model, improve the interface, and add Garmin support and an Android beta before full launch.