CHF 10,000 for a scientific collaboration platform, a compact tabletop high-throughput screening device, innovative biocompostable packaging, mid-infrared lasers, and CO2-storage optimization
12.05.2025
Axy, DropGen, PeelPack, SCALE, and Storra were selected at Venture Kick's first financial and entrepreneurial support stage. Their projects transform scientific gatherings into dynamic, personalized knowledge ecosystems; enable miniaturized assays, lowering resource consumption and boosting throughput; create innovative biocompostable packaging from upcycled potato peels using proprietary novel Bioplastic technology; pioneer cost-effective and power-efficient lasers for scalable manufacturing and testing; and enable fast-tracking profitable CO2 storage projects.
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 Axy: CFO Malav Patel, CTO Aarsh Patel, CEO Nisheet Patel, & CAIO Pablo Tano
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 DropGen: Co-Founders Claudius Dietsche & Maximilian Breitfeld
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 Peelpack: CEO Veaceslav Driglov & CTO Massimo Bagnani
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 SCALE: CEO David Stark & CTO Killian Keller
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 Storra: Co-Founders CTO Dr. Michael Liem & CEO Dr. Edoardo Pezzulli
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Axy: Building the Future of Scientific Collaboration
Scientific conferences are meant to spark discovery and collaboration, but researchers face massive challenges: information overload, missed connections, and lost opportunities. Important abstracts get buried in 1,000-page booklets, critical collaborators go undiscovered, and post-conference value quickly evaporates.
Created by scientists frustrated with missing half of what mattered at conferences, Axy transforms scientific gatherings into dynamic, personalized knowledge ecosystems. Their platform supports the entire conference journey—before, during, and after—helping researchers discover relevant abstracts, build personalized agendas, and connect with potential collaborators who share their focus. With a playful interface and offline recommender system that learns preferences, Axy has already supported conferences with over 1,000 attendees, earning enthusiastic feedback from researchers worldwide.
With Venture Kick funding, Axy will complete their Journal Club application, expand their Organizers' platform, conduct beta tests across multiple scientific conferences, and launch their comprehensive brand presence, accelerating their mission to dramatically boost the value of scientific gatherings everywhere.
DropGen: Miniaturized liquid handling for high-throughput screening and advanced lab automation
High-throughput screening (HTS) is an essential technique in life sciences and drug discovery, yet current systems based on multiwell plates and automated liquid handling remain time-consuming and costly. DropGen tackles this bottleneck by overcoming the limits of plate density and automation in biology and drug discovery.
To reduce investment costs and lab space requirements, DropGen offers a compact tabletop HTS device employing miniaturized liquid handling for microdroplet arrays. Its innovative technology enables miniaturized assays, lowering resource consumption and boosting throughput. It targets the USD 22.8B HTS market by addressing key limitations of conventional systems. The founding team brings expertise in engineering, microbiology, and microfabrication.
The Venture Kick funding will support DropGen’s pre-incorporation business development, including market validation, customer outreach through key conferences, and IP setup.
Peel Pack: Turning potato waste into compostable packaging for fresh produce
The fresh produce industry faces a significant challenge with plastic packaging waste. Retailers and consumers increasingly demand sustainable alternatives, yet existing options often fall short on performance for delicate fresh goods or lack true compostability, contributing to environmental pollution and food waste within the supply chain.
Founded by Veaceslav Driglov (CEO), Massimo Bagnani (CTO and inventor of the core technology), and Daria Reisch (Co-founder), Peelpack addresses this by creating innovative biocompostable packaging from upcycled potato peels using proprietary novel Bioplastic technology. Their punnets offer performance comparable to plastic, including cold chain and humidity resistance, and integrate seamlessly into existing packaging processes. The global punnet packaging market is substantial, projected at $5.8 billion by 2034, with a rapidly growing segment for biodegradable solutions.
Peelpack intends to utilize the Venture Kick funds to produce 100,000 units for a large-scale pilot project with leading Swiss Food retailers and progress with securing intellectual property through the patent application process.
SCALE: Mid-infrared lasers for portable multicolor sensing
Sensors based on mid-infrared lasers are bulky, heavy, expensive, and power-hungry, restricting their scalability and application space. This is largely due to the inefficiency of current laser chips, which feature large footprints and require costly testing to match the application.
SCALE is commercializing the next mid-infrared laser technology to overcome these barriers. CEO David Stark and CTO Killian Keller combine profound expertise in semiconductor lasers and integrated photonics. They are pioneering cost-effective and power-efficient lasers for scalable manufacturing and testing. This technology unlocks portable and multicolor sensing at scale. The initial focus is the laser-based gas sensor market, expected to reach USD 586M by 2026. Beyond gas sensing, the technology opens the door to high-impact markets, such as non-invasive glucose monitoring.
Venture Kick funding will be used to finalize a packaged prototype that is ready for customer use. This prototype will be a key tool for attracting early adopters and securing pilot projects. These funds will be further used to engage with the supply and customer chain.
Storra: Optimizing CO2-storage
Every CO2-storage operator must prove that injected CO2 will remain safely and permanently underground while optimising operations for profitability. Yet most firms trust a lone “best-case” model, ignoring geologic unknowns that erode performance and
containment safety. This blindness to uncertainty surrenders the chance to optimise the storage site’s performance and robustness, while also triggering permitting delays of up to 24 months, freezing over 50 M CHF in idle capital, and burdening operations with millions in avoidable monitoring and insurance costs.
Storra’s uncertainty-simulation platform converts those unknowns into actionable insight. By testing thousands of plausible underground scenarios, it pinpoints the safest injection plan and leanest monitoring scheme, thereafter distilling the results into storage robustness scores for effective stakeholder engagement. Their solution is designed for optimising under uncertainty, reducing permitting times, & trimming monitoring and insurance costs, thereby fast-tracking profitable CO2 storage projects in a rapidly expanding USD 7B market.
Scientific conferences are meant to spark discovery and collaboration, but researchers face massive challenges: information overload, missed connections, and lost opportunities. Important abstracts get buried in 1,000-page booklets, critical collaborators go undiscovered, and post-conference value quickly evaporates.
Created by scientists frustrated with missing half of what mattered at conferences, Axy transforms scientific gatherings into dynamic, personalized knowledge ecosystems. Their platform supports the entire conference journey—before, during, and after—helping researchers discover relevant abstracts, build personalized agendas, and connect with potential collaborators who share their focus. With a playful interface and offline recommender system that learns preferences, Axy has already supported conferences with over 1,000 attendees, earning enthusiastic feedback from researchers worldwide.
With Venture Kick funding, Axy will complete their Journal Club application, expand their Organizers' platform, conduct beta tests across multiple scientific conferences, and launch their comprehensive brand presence, accelerating their mission to dramatically boost the value of scientific gatherings everywhere.
DropGen: Miniaturized liquid handling for high-throughput screening and advanced lab automation
High-throughput screening (HTS) is an essential technique in life sciences and drug discovery, yet current systems based on multiwell plates and automated liquid handling remain time-consuming and costly. DropGen tackles this bottleneck by overcoming the limits of plate density and automation in biology and drug discovery.
To reduce investment costs and lab space requirements, DropGen offers a compact tabletop HTS device employing miniaturized liquid handling for microdroplet arrays. Its innovative technology enables miniaturized assays, lowering resource consumption and boosting throughput. It targets the USD 22.8B HTS market by addressing key limitations of conventional systems. The founding team brings expertise in engineering, microbiology, and microfabrication.
The Venture Kick funding will support DropGen’s pre-incorporation business development, including market validation, customer outreach through key conferences, and IP setup.
Peel Pack: Turning potato waste into compostable packaging for fresh produce
The fresh produce industry faces a significant challenge with plastic packaging waste. Retailers and consumers increasingly demand sustainable alternatives, yet existing options often fall short on performance for delicate fresh goods or lack true compostability, contributing to environmental pollution and food waste within the supply chain.
Founded by Veaceslav Driglov (CEO), Massimo Bagnani (CTO and inventor of the core technology), and Daria Reisch (Co-founder), Peelpack addresses this by creating innovative biocompostable packaging from upcycled potato peels using proprietary novel Bioplastic technology. Their punnets offer performance comparable to plastic, including cold chain and humidity resistance, and integrate seamlessly into existing packaging processes. The global punnet packaging market is substantial, projected at $5.8 billion by 2034, with a rapidly growing segment for biodegradable solutions.
Peelpack intends to utilize the Venture Kick funds to produce 100,000 units for a large-scale pilot project with leading Swiss Food retailers and progress with securing intellectual property through the patent application process.
SCALE: Mid-infrared lasers for portable multicolor sensing
Sensors based on mid-infrared lasers are bulky, heavy, expensive, and power-hungry, restricting their scalability and application space. This is largely due to the inefficiency of current laser chips, which feature large footprints and require costly testing to match the application.
SCALE is commercializing the next mid-infrared laser technology to overcome these barriers. CEO David Stark and CTO Killian Keller combine profound expertise in semiconductor lasers and integrated photonics. They are pioneering cost-effective and power-efficient lasers for scalable manufacturing and testing. This technology unlocks portable and multicolor sensing at scale. The initial focus is the laser-based gas sensor market, expected to reach USD 586M by 2026. Beyond gas sensing, the technology opens the door to high-impact markets, such as non-invasive glucose monitoring.
Venture Kick funding will be used to finalize a packaged prototype that is ready for customer use. This prototype will be a key tool for attracting early adopters and securing pilot projects. These funds will be further used to engage with the supply and customer chain.
Storra: Optimizing CO2-storage
Every CO2-storage operator must prove that injected CO2 will remain safely and permanently underground while optimising operations for profitability. Yet most firms trust a lone “best-case” model, ignoring geologic unknowns that erode performance and
containment safety. This blindness to uncertainty surrenders the chance to optimise the storage site’s performance and robustness, while also triggering permitting delays of up to 24 months, freezing over 50 M CHF in idle capital, and burdening operations with millions in avoidable monitoring and insurance costs.
Storra’s uncertainty-simulation platform converts those unknowns into actionable insight. By testing thousands of plausible underground scenarios, it pinpoints the safest injection plan and leanest monitoring scheme, thereafter distilling the results into storage robustness scores for effective stakeholder engagement. Their solution is designed for optimising under uncertainty, reducing permitting times, & trimming monitoring and insurance costs, thereby fast-tracking profitable CO2 storage projects in a rapidly expanding USD 7B market.