HOUGHTON — MTEC SmartZone has announced its 2026 Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Program Accelerator companies.

This year’s cohort brings together innovators tackling some of manufacturing’s most pressing challenges, from circular-economy plastics recycling to precision construction monitoring using machine vision to the first hard hat engineered specifically for women.

The 2026 AMMP Accelerator cohort companies include: 

• Optical Quantum Technologies TBD – This emerging venture has developed a new class of gyroscope and hybrid between classical and quantum computing to provide a more durable, rugged, and novel positioning system. Using optical quantum states, the company’s core technology leverages optical orbital angular momentum (OAM) and magneto-optical (MO) materials to improve quantum sensing and positional navigation in land, air, and sea environments.

• SinusBath – SinusBath is a health-focused startup developing a next-generation nasal irrigation system. Their product is a nasal irrigation device that delivers an aerated saline solution with improved ergonomics to improve efficiency, comfort, usability and long-term adoption.

• PileVision – PileVision automates pile installation monitoring by replacing old processes with a real-time computer vision sensor. This allows site managers to collect accurate, continuous data without relying on scarce and expensive inspectors, which could reduce costs and improve safety on infrastructure job sites.

• her.HAT – āśaya is a human-centered design and innovation company with two divisions, āśaya INNOVATE and āśaya DESIGN. Through their INNOVATE division, āśaya develops products at the intersection of design, construction, and manufacturing. Through this division, they are developing her.HAT, the first hard hat engineered specifically for women with smart sensing to serve a growing female workforce in the trades.

• CaptureTech – CaptureTech deploys modular bioreactor Biochar Capture Packs (BCPs) to intercept nutrient pollution and organic waste in freshwater, stormwater and nutrient-rich waste streams. The recovered biomass is then upcycled into regenerative fertilizers and soil amendments. This creates a circular economy model that restores microbial biodiversity while addressing and remediating agricultural runoff.

• ZiTech – ZiTech is a sustainable manufacturing solution that processes hard-to-recycle waste, like #3-7 plastics, into polymer pellets. The product is combined with contaminated fibers such as pizza boxes, to create pellets that can be used in injection molding and extrusion.