Akara and the EIC Accelerator: From UV Robot to OR Sensor

Akara Robotics set out to disinfect hospital rooms with ultraviolet light without clearing them of people first. The Dublin company, a spin-out from Trinity College Dublin incorporated in 2019, won EIC funding for Violet, a UV-C robot designed to work in occupied rooms by aiming its light selectively and monitoring UV exposure in real time, according to its CORDIS project.

The European Innovation Council granted €2,450,688.63 towards a €3.50 million project. The project delivered a CE-marked robot. It also produced a privacy-preserving thermal AI sensor, first meant to support the robot. That sensor has since become the company's lead product, in operating rooms in the US and UK. It is a pivot that grew out of the EIC-funded project, though it is not what the grant was for.

Where Akara Stands Today

Akara now presents itself as an AI company for hospital operations. Its thermal sensor, installed in operating rooms, tracks the stages of surgeries, sends real-time alerts to staff and generates scheduling data. TIME listed it among the best inventions of 2025, reporting that hospitals including the ambulatory surgery division of Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles had started using it, with five more planned in the US and Europe. In December 2025 TechCrunch described the company's move from cleaning robots to ambient sensing, and CEO Conor McGinn said he had used vetting by the NHS as a route into US hospitals.

The UV robot is still offered: Act Venture Capital's portfolio page lists both the AI platform and the robot. The Irish register via SoloCheck lists the company as normal.

The Technology: UV Light, Then Heat Maps

UV-C light kills microbes on surfaces but is harmful to people, which is why disinfection robots usually work in empty rooms. Violet was designed to irradiate selectively while monitoring exposure, so it could work around people. The sensor that grew out of the project reads rooms through thermal imaging and, according to the CORDIS report, "runs all inference at the edge, providing real-time room activity insights without capturing or transmitting identifiable data".

What the EIC Project Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

AVRICS ran from April 2022 to April 2025. The CORDIS report says it took the technology from TRL 5 to 6 to TRL 8, delivering "a robust, validated, and CE-marked solution". Two commercial-grade versions of the robot were built, with an AI thermal sensor and a wearable UV sensor, and field trials ran in Europe, the US and Japan. It then describes the turn: talking to hospitals, the team found they lacked visibility of their own workflows, and developed the sensor as a standalone product for "measuring baseline inefficiencies and informing operational decisions". The report gives no numbers for robots sold or hospitals served.

1. A CE-marked UV robotDeliveredTRL 8, two commercial versions, per CORDIS.
2. Clinical field trialsDeliveredEurope, the US and Japan; results not published in detail.
3. Commercial robot salesNot shownNo sales or deployment figures published.
4. A new product lineUnplannedAI operating room sensor, now the lead product.

What Has Happened Since the Award

The Money

Act Venture Capital lists Akara as a live portfolio company, but we found no announced funding round with an amount. The EIC award was "grant first", under which any EIC equity is decided later, and we found no EIC Fund investment announcement. The Health Innovation Network's 2024 profile said the technology was in use in Ireland, the UK and the US, without customer or revenue figures.

Why Europe Should Care

The EIC funded a hospital robot and got, as a by-product, an AI product that TIME reports has started to be used in American operating rooms. For European health systems the useful question is whether that technology comes back to them: the company's own account is that the NHS served as its entry ticket to the US.

The Verdict

Akara Robotics has not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records, company statements and EU project data, linked throughout.