Avionova

Avionova is an Ohio-based startup developing wearable earbud technologies that interact with the vestibular system, the inner-ear structures responsible for balance and spatial orientation. The company's initial focus is people who experience motion-related discomfort, including motion sickness and vestibular conditions such as vertigo, symptoms that can limit travel, work and daily activities and that are commonly addressed today with medications aimed at symptom management or with rehabilitation therapy.

The product is described as a dual earpiece that helps regulate the vestibular system in unusual attitudes by delivering sensory cues through the external ear canal, using a blend of hydrogels formulated to mimic the viscosity and characteristics of endolymphatic fluid. Public descriptions also frame the device as operating through precise thermal stimulation, an approach the founder attributes to a clinical technique long used to demonstrate how temperature influences vestibular function. Early framing of the work included application to balance disruption experienced during high-altitude, high-speed flight and in zero gravity, alongside terrestrial patient use.

Founding story

The concept originated as a technology intended for a payload on a zero-gravity flight run with the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences and the Canadian Space Agency. Two weeks into development, founder Noor Haj-Tamim began researching how widespread balance disorders are on the ground, and shortly afterward developed Ménière's disease and experienced a severe vertigo episode, which she cites as the turning point that led her to build a product for patients. Haj-Tamim's background includes involvement with the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences, participation in NASA technology and entrepreneurship programming with work on tech transfer projects as a student, and founding JSSOAR (Jordan Student Space Outreach and Academic Relations), a space and STEM education nonprofit she started at 17 that became one of NASA's first museum and informal-education partners outside the United States.

Traction

Selected into a Techstars 2025 cohort; founder Noor Haj-Tamim was featured in Forbes, as noted in Techstars' January 2026 update.

Latest developments

As of a June 2026 Techstars interview, Haj-Tamim was operating as a solo founder and expanding the team, supported by advisors including Alan Gilbert, met through Techstars where he served as Entrepreneur in Residence and helped identify engineering partners with space and consumer hardware backgrounds in miniaturization and wearable product development, and Dr. Desi Schoo, recruited to Ohio State's ENT department from Johns Hopkins, who collaborates on vestibular research.