CHF 10,000 for acoustic AI for drone threat detection, streamlining early-stage drug discovery, an ultra-portable dental system, predicting tumor agression, and instantly generated 3D GIFs
27.11.2025
Askalon Industries, Baio, Dental Robotics, Ninsun Biotech, and Roofless Labs were selected in the first stage of Venture Kick’s support program. Their innovative projects include developing an acoustic AI system to detect low-altitude airspace threats (Askalon Industries), using generative AI to expedite early-stage drug discovery and design novel drug candidates (Baio), creating a portable 3-in-1 dental hygiene system that connects patients, hygienists, and dentists for on-demand services (Dental Robotics), launching Ninstem Lung, a CE-marked prognostic test for detecting tumor aggressiveness (Ninsun Biotech), and producing a digital device that combines four lenses and an AI pipeline to instantly produce 3D GIFs without post-production (Roofless Labs).
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 Askalon Industries: CEO Severin Camy
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 Baio: CTO Arne Schneuing and CEO Ilia Igashov
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 Dental Robotics: CEO Dr. Arthur Sebesteny and COO Kinga Ory
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 Ninsun Biotech: Dr. Vincent Carré (PhD) and Dr. Sylvain Gnaho
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 Roofless Labs: CEO Maïkor Juvet and CTO Jean-Baptiste Michel
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Askalon Industries: Passive Acoustic AI for Drone Threat Detection
The rapid rise of low-cost, autonomous, and RF-silent drones has outpaced today’s security tools. Airports, prisons, utilities, and government sites face growing operational and safety risks, while radar and RF systems remain either too expensive or ineffective against modern silent threats. The market urgently needs a scalable, passive, and reliable way to protect wide areas without military-grade budgets or detectable emissions.
Askalon listens to the sky to detect threats that others can’t see, with the mission of building the acoustic AI backbone that secures Europe’s low-altitude airspace. Founded in Lausanne in 2025, Askalon’s team unites expertise in acoustics, embedded AI, and edge hardware. Their proprietary passive acoustic system detects and locates drones in real-time—even in high-noise environments—at a cost 10–50x lower than radar or optical alternatives. This affordability enables the deployment of dense sensor networks and addresses a multi-billion-euro global market across critical infrastructure, defense, and urban security. With a growing proprietary dataset and an MVP launching in Q1 2026, Askalon aims to become a core element of Europe’s low-altitude security architecture.
Venture Kick funding will support the shift from validated prototypes to an industrial MVP, including hardware refinement, expanded field data acquisition, and early pilot deployments with strategic customers. These steps accelerate commercial readiness for 2026 and reinforce Askalon’s lead in passive drone detection.
Baio: Streamlining early-stage drug discovery
Traditional early-stage drug discovery depends on screening chemical libraries, a costly and time-consuming process that explores only a tiny fraction of the astronomically large chemical space. Depending on the therapeutic target, these workflows can take several years and cost millions of dollars.
Baio reshapes early-stage drug discovery by exploring the entire chemical space with generative AI and designs novel drug candidates in a fraction of the time. Baio is an EPFL spin-off founded by PhD students Ilia Igashov and Arne Schneuing, together with Professor Bruno Correia. Over the past years, the team has pioneered the field of generative AI for structure-based drug discovery and developed a set of tools that have been widely adopted by the community. At Baio, they aim to help pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies accelerate their pre-clinical R&D pipelines.
Venture Kick funding will enable Baio to gather experimental evidence to de-risk and further refine its core technology.
Dental Robotics: Enabling preventive dental care anywhere with an ultra-portable dental system.
Dental Robotics addresses the global burden of oral disease, which affects 3.5 billion people and is linked to chronic conditions such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cardiovascular disease, and premature birth. Today, preventive dental care is constrained by bulky equipment and clinic-based workflows, limiting access for patients and restricting flexibility for hygienists.
Founded by Dr. Arthur Sebesteny, a dentist with five years of clinical experience, and Kinga Ory, a former HR manager with eight years of expertise in PR, marketing, and project management, the startup develops a lightweight, portable 3-in-1 dental hygiene system paired with a digital platform that connects patients, hygienists, and dentists - creating an “on-demand dental hygiene” model. They target a USD 25B global market, with the U.S. as the largest opportunity, where 42 states allow hygienists to work independently. Market demand has been validated through a signed LOI for 100 units from JetDental, a major U.S. mobile dental service provider.
The Venture Kick funds will support product development and market validation.
dentalrobotics.ch
Ninsun Biotech: Predict tumor aggression regardless of stage, predict non-response to neoadjuvant treatments in lung cancer
In early-stage lung cancer, many patients classified as Stage I actually harbor highly aggressive tumors that relapse soon after surgery. Clinicians currently lack a reliable tool to identify these high-risk patients or to know who will truly respond to neoadjuvant immunotherapy. Ineffective treatment delays surgery, increases complications, and wastes EUR 25–50k per patient.
Ninsun Biotech was founded by Dr. Vincent Carré (PhD), Dr. Sylvain Gnaho, and Dr. Chandouri (PhD), supported by an international network of experts in thoracic oncology, pathology, and health economics. The company has developed Ninstem Lung, the first CE-marked and clinically validated prognostic test capable of detecting tumor aggressiveness at any operable stage. Ninsun is now validating its predictive use to select responders to neoadjuvant immunotherapy and targeted therapies — addressing a market of 260,000 operable NSCLC patients in Europe each year.
Venture Kick funding will be used to expand the clinical cohort in Switzerland and France and to advance AI-assisted slide interpretation, boosting predictive performance and accelerating adoption toward commercialization.
Roofless labs: Bridging the gap between creators and 3D photography
Stereoscopic images, also known as 3D gifs or “wigglegrams,” are on the rise, but creating them currently requires buying expensive and rare vintage cameras, film development, and complex manual editing skills in Photoshop. The process is slow, costly, and unscalable for the digital age.
Roofless Labs, incorporated in 2025 by CEO Maïkor Juvet and CTO Jean-Baptiste Michel, introduces K4MERA. This product is a digital "point-and-shoot" that combines four synchronized lenses and a custom AI pipeline to instantly generate 3D GIFs, removing all post-production complexity. They are primarily targeting the booming creator economy, starting with the confirmed 20k+ wigglegram enthusiasts and millions of creators seeking differentiation in a market anticipated to be worth nearly half a trillion dollars. This segment fits within the growing 3D camera market, which is projected to expand from USD 1.59 billion to USD 3.49 billion by 2030.
Roofless Labs will use the Venture funds to finalize its prototype architecture with CSEM support. This capital will allow the company to produce high-quality demo content and conduct essential user testing.
The rapid rise of low-cost, autonomous, and RF-silent drones has outpaced today’s security tools. Airports, prisons, utilities, and government sites face growing operational and safety risks, while radar and RF systems remain either too expensive or ineffective against modern silent threats. The market urgently needs a scalable, passive, and reliable way to protect wide areas without military-grade budgets or detectable emissions.
Askalon listens to the sky to detect threats that others can’t see, with the mission of building the acoustic AI backbone that secures Europe’s low-altitude airspace. Founded in Lausanne in 2025, Askalon’s team unites expertise in acoustics, embedded AI, and edge hardware. Their proprietary passive acoustic system detects and locates drones in real-time—even in high-noise environments—at a cost 10–50x lower than radar or optical alternatives. This affordability enables the deployment of dense sensor networks and addresses a multi-billion-euro global market across critical infrastructure, defense, and urban security. With a growing proprietary dataset and an MVP launching in Q1 2026, Askalon aims to become a core element of Europe’s low-altitude security architecture.
Venture Kick funding will support the shift from validated prototypes to an industrial MVP, including hardware refinement, expanded field data acquisition, and early pilot deployments with strategic customers. These steps accelerate commercial readiness for 2026 and reinforce Askalon’s lead in passive drone detection.
Baio: Streamlining early-stage drug discovery
Traditional early-stage drug discovery depends on screening chemical libraries, a costly and time-consuming process that explores only a tiny fraction of the astronomically large chemical space. Depending on the therapeutic target, these workflows can take several years and cost millions of dollars.
Baio reshapes early-stage drug discovery by exploring the entire chemical space with generative AI and designs novel drug candidates in a fraction of the time. Baio is an EPFL spin-off founded by PhD students Ilia Igashov and Arne Schneuing, together with Professor Bruno Correia. Over the past years, the team has pioneered the field of generative AI for structure-based drug discovery and developed a set of tools that have been widely adopted by the community. At Baio, they aim to help pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies accelerate their pre-clinical R&D pipelines.
Venture Kick funding will enable Baio to gather experimental evidence to de-risk and further refine its core technology.
Dental Robotics: Enabling preventive dental care anywhere with an ultra-portable dental system.
Dental Robotics addresses the global burden of oral disease, which affects 3.5 billion people and is linked to chronic conditions such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cardiovascular disease, and premature birth. Today, preventive dental care is constrained by bulky equipment and clinic-based workflows, limiting access for patients and restricting flexibility for hygienists.
Founded by Dr. Arthur Sebesteny, a dentist with five years of clinical experience, and Kinga Ory, a former HR manager with eight years of expertise in PR, marketing, and project management, the startup develops a lightweight, portable 3-in-1 dental hygiene system paired with a digital platform that connects patients, hygienists, and dentists - creating an “on-demand dental hygiene” model. They target a USD 25B global market, with the U.S. as the largest opportunity, where 42 states allow hygienists to work independently. Market demand has been validated through a signed LOI for 100 units from JetDental, a major U.S. mobile dental service provider.
The Venture Kick funds will support product development and market validation.
dentalrobotics.ch
Ninsun Biotech: Predict tumor aggression regardless of stage, predict non-response to neoadjuvant treatments in lung cancer
In early-stage lung cancer, many patients classified as Stage I actually harbor highly aggressive tumors that relapse soon after surgery. Clinicians currently lack a reliable tool to identify these high-risk patients or to know who will truly respond to neoadjuvant immunotherapy. Ineffective treatment delays surgery, increases complications, and wastes EUR 25–50k per patient.
Ninsun Biotech was founded by Dr. Vincent Carré (PhD), Dr. Sylvain Gnaho, and Dr. Chandouri (PhD), supported by an international network of experts in thoracic oncology, pathology, and health economics. The company has developed Ninstem Lung, the first CE-marked and clinically validated prognostic test capable of detecting tumor aggressiveness at any operable stage. Ninsun is now validating its predictive use to select responders to neoadjuvant immunotherapy and targeted therapies — addressing a market of 260,000 operable NSCLC patients in Europe each year.
Venture Kick funding will be used to expand the clinical cohort in Switzerland and France and to advance AI-assisted slide interpretation, boosting predictive performance and accelerating adoption toward commercialization.
Roofless labs: Bridging the gap between creators and 3D photography
Stereoscopic images, also known as 3D gifs or “wigglegrams,” are on the rise, but creating them currently requires buying expensive and rare vintage cameras, film development, and complex manual editing skills in Photoshop. The process is slow, costly, and unscalable for the digital age.
Roofless Labs, incorporated in 2025 by CEO Maïkor Juvet and CTO Jean-Baptiste Michel, introduces K4MERA. This product is a digital "point-and-shoot" that combines four synchronized lenses and a custom AI pipeline to instantly generate 3D GIFs, removing all post-production complexity. They are primarily targeting the booming creator economy, starting with the confirmed 20k+ wigglegram enthusiasts and millions of creators seeking differentiation in a market anticipated to be worth nearly half a trillion dollars. This segment fits within the growing 3D camera market, which is projected to expand from USD 1.59 billion to USD 3.49 billion by 2030.
Roofless Labs will use the Venture funds to finalize its prototype architecture with CSEM support. This capital will allow the company to produce high-quality demo content and conduct essential user testing.