Healable Composites, Anti-metastatic Drug Platform, Customized Heart-Valve Production, and Sustainable Concrete
27.02.2019
Four new Venture Kickers: CompPair, Hi-D Imaging, Invasight and Oxora each won 10,000 Swiss francs pre-seed capital from the Venture Kick national support program. The projects may disrupt the medical, construction and composite materials industries.
 Amaël Cohades, founder of CompPair
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.jpg) Karthiga Santhana Kumar and Sam Fulcher, co-founders of Invasight
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.jpg) Utku Gülan and Özge Karakas, cofounders of Hi-D-Imaging
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.jpg) Gnanli Landrou, founder of Oxara
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CompPair: Healable composites
Composite materials (used in applications such as windmills, sports, energy generation or transportation) have a design limitation when they are subjected to damage, which compromises their durability. Users can either repair or replace the part. Both choices imply high costs and a negative ecological impact. EPFL graduate Amaël Cohades’ Lausanne-based startup CompPair develops smart and sustainable material solutions to overcome this drawback. The new materials enable: repeated damage healing; usage as resistant and lightweight material; compatible manufacturing with conventional processes; easier recycling at the end-of-life.
www.venturekick.ch/comppair
Hi-D Imaging: A novel heart valve selection service
In the era of personalized medicine, a 'one-size-fits-all' approach is no longer valid. Hi-D Imaging's novel service exceeds conventional imaging tools to find the best type of heart-valve for each individual patient. Researchers Utku Gülan and Özge Karakas, engineers from ETH Zurich, are developing imaging technologies for cardiovascular disease doctors and their patients needing heart valve replacement. Hi-D Imaging's technology, based on ten years of expertise in biomedical fluid dynamics, uses advanced scanning, 3D-printing and imaging techniques to select the ideal valve before surgery. This reduces complications after-surgery and improves patient recovery and quality of life.
www.venturekick.ch/Hi-D
Oxara: Cleancrete using excavation materials
The construction industry accounts for 30% global CO2 emission, 1/3 of global energy consumption, 50% of waste generated. In addition, UN Habitat and World Banks estimate that by 2050, we need to build affordable housing for 2 billion people, therefore, we need to find sustainable solution to respond to the growing demand in affordable housing while reducing construction industry climate impact. Gnanli Landrou's ETH Zurich spin-off, Oxara, is developing a technology that enables the local transformation of construction waste, such as excavation materials, into sustainable, cement-free poured earth concrete, while using traditional concrete infrastructure and processes. The entrepreneur was recently included on Forbes’ list of 30 under 30 innovative people. Cleancrete is as much as 2.5 times cheaper and 20 times more ecological than conventional concrete
Composite materials (used in applications such as windmills, sports, energy generation or transportation) have a design limitation when they are subjected to damage, which compromises their durability. Users can either repair or replace the part. Both choices imply high costs and a negative ecological impact. EPFL graduate Amaël Cohades’ Lausanne-based startup CompPair develops smart and sustainable material solutions to overcome this drawback. The new materials enable: repeated damage healing; usage as resistant and lightweight material; compatible manufacturing with conventional processes; easier recycling at the end-of-life.
www.venturekick.ch/comppair
Invasight: Revolutionising anti-metastatic drug discovery
Cancer metastasis, the dissemination and propagation of cancer cells distant from the primary tumour site, is the leading of cause of cancer-associated mortality. Automated cell dissemination counter (aCDc) is a core technology for anti-invasion drug discovery developed through multiple years of research at the University Children’s Hospital Zürich and University of Zürich (UZH). Karthiga Santhana Kumar, Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zürich and Executive MBA student at the EPFL, is developing aCDC into a drug discovery platform to change the way we study, treat, design and use drugs to combat cancer metastasis. Invasight envisions aCDc to revolutionise anti-invasion research and drug discovery for improving treatment of patients with metastatic cancers.
Hi-D Imaging: A novel heart valve selection service
In the era of personalized medicine, a 'one-size-fits-all' approach is no longer valid. Hi-D Imaging's novel service exceeds conventional imaging tools to find the best type of heart-valve for each individual patient. Researchers Utku Gülan and Özge Karakas, engineers from ETH Zurich, are developing imaging technologies for cardiovascular disease doctors and their patients needing heart valve replacement. Hi-D Imaging's technology, based on ten years of expertise in biomedical fluid dynamics, uses advanced scanning, 3D-printing and imaging techniques to select the ideal valve before surgery. This reduces complications after-surgery and improves patient recovery and quality of life.
www.venturekick.ch/Hi-D
Oxara: Cleancrete using excavation materials
The construction industry accounts for 30% global CO2 emission, 1/3 of global energy consumption, 50% of waste generated. In addition, UN Habitat and World Banks estimate that by 2050, we need to build affordable housing for 2 billion people, therefore, we need to find sustainable solution to respond to the growing demand in affordable housing while reducing construction industry climate impact. Gnanli Landrou's ETH Zurich spin-off, Oxara, is developing a technology that enables the local transformation of construction waste, such as excavation materials, into sustainable, cement-free poured earth concrete, while using traditional concrete infrastructure and processes. The entrepreneur was recently included on Forbes’ list of 30 under 30 innovative people. Cleancrete is as much as 2.5 times cheaper and 20 times more ecological than conventional concrete