CHF 40,000 for startups developing next-generation microscopes slides, perovskite solar cells, and an AI-based platform to mentor Python code writing
07.01.2021
Luminesys, Perovskia, and Python Upskilling win Venture Kick's second stage of financial and entrepreneurial support. Their projects improve up to 25 times the brightness of fluorescent markers, help industrials considerably reduce the production cost of photovoltaic solar cells and, coders to learn at their own pace and level while being guided to understand Python in a holistic way.
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 Luminesys' Cofounders Nicolas Descharmes and Raphael Barbey
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, Dr. David Martineau (CTO), Dr. Toby Meyer (co-founder, CEO Solaronix1.jpg) Perovskia: Anand Verma (co-founder, CEO), Dr. David Martineau (CTO), Dr. Toby Meyer (co-founder, CEO Solaronix)
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 Python Upskilling: Benjamin Russel, Antonio Fortin and, Thomas Boys
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Luminesys: Next-generation microscope slides
The precise identification of many life-impacting pathologies such as cancer and autoimmune diseases often involves fluorescence-based analyses. Although well-established, fluorescence imaging is a technique that often suffers from the weakness of the available light to measure. The later imposes long time-to-answers, tedious amplification mechanisms and advanced read-out equipment, which all-in-all reduce the practicality of these analyses. Nicolas Descharmes, postdoc at EPFL and Raphaël Barbey, senior R&D engineer at CSEM, co-founded Luminesys to provide coated microscopy slides for fluorescence-based medical analyses and molecular biology applications to doctors, scientists and researchers who wish to decrease their time-to-answer, improve the quality of their data and, in fine, improve the reliability of their analyses. They estimate that over 20 million slides are used for fluorescence analyses every year worldwide. They have contacted and visited several tens of laboratories, hospitals and companies, produced >1500 slides and are currently testing some of them in real-case customer specific applications. Four distinct private companies have already manifested an interest in the Luminesys technology.
The Venture Kick funds will be used to sustain their sales and marketing effort, to reach out to the medical and pharmaceutical community and to consolidate their business model. luminesys.ch
Perovskia: Digitally printed perovskite solar cells for the speciality photovoltaic market
The present photovoltaic market is dominated by silicon solar cells. These are fabricated using energy-intensive and resource-hungry processes. Also, silicon wafers are fabricated in fixed shapes and sizes, considerably reducing design flexibility. Anand Verma (co-founder, CEO), Dr. David Martineau (CTO), Dr. Toby Meyer (co-founder, CEO Solaronix), and Andreas Meyer (CTO Lumartix) have developed a digital printing technology to fabricate efficient and stable perovskite solar cells with custom design capability. The fabrication techniques they developed are highly efficient and flexible, which will reduce the production cost considerably, even for customized items. With this breakthrough, the team can cater to the diverse needs of Internet of Things, electronic goods, sensors, and ultimately designer solar tiles industries. They are already working with a couple of industrial clients where customized solar cells have been successfully tested. These collaborations will generate first revenues for the startup, and will establish the company among the first to commercialize perovskite solar cell technology in real-world electronic devices (lab to product).
The Venture Kick Funds will be used to acquire research projects with prototyping for clients, promotions and IP. This will also help in getting new funds from agencies like the EU, and further develop the technology for the current customers.
Python Upskilling: AI mentoring in writing quality Python code
For the past three years Python has topped the ranking of the most in-demand coding language. It is still rapidly growing. With no surprise, as two million individuals learned Python in 2018, there is a strong and growing demand for upskilling in Python. To meet this demand, founder Benjamin Russell, Ph.D. CS at York, Senior RA at Princeton (app. math) and data science consultant for Unilever, Nestle, Dr. Antonio Fortin, head of content. and Oxford Researcher, Thomas Boys, head sales & marketing and co-founder, MSc Mathematics at EPFL, and two talented developers from the EPFL data science master program, created Python Upskilling, a SaaS-based platform offering near human-level AI mentoring in writing quality Python code. Inspired by how a mentor guides a learner, an AI-driven smartly adapts to a user’s needs to offer essential live feedback and mentoring which, only humans have been able to provide until now.
The Venture Kick Funds will be used to pay salaries and free-lancers to create workbooks and video content, as well as for Hosting and other IT costs.