Novel mTOR inhibitors to treat cancer, accessible eye screening, high-performance speaker, and a platform revolutionizing influencer marketing each win CHF 10,000
27.12.2021
Aukera Therapeutics, CheckUpPoint, Lambda Acoustics, and Refluenced win Venture Kick's first stage of financial and entrepreneurial support. Their projects enable the development of new classes of pharmaceutical drugs to selectively target different branches of the mTOR pathway; offer easy, quick, and affordable access to eye screenings at the highest medical standards; rethink the design and functionality of a conventional speaker box; and scale and automate influencer marketing with a search, matching, and communication platform.
 |
 |
 Aukera Therapeutics: Co-Founders Stefan Imseng and Dritan Liko
|
|
 CheckUpPoint CEO Benedikt Wiechers, CMO Christian Kirr, and CTO Christoph Haarburger
|
|
 Lambda Acoustics: Industrial Designer Verena Hutter
|
|
 Refluenced : CEO Quirin Hasler, CTO Jonas Holzer, CCO Nicola Dutoit, CSO Benjamin Willie, and CMO Felix Greinier
|
|
Aukera Therapeutics: Unleashing the therapeutic potential of mTOR inhibition
The mammalian Target of Rapamycin (mTOR) regulates cell growth and metabolism. mTOR acts in the cell in two forms: mTOR complex 1 or mTOR complex 2. Misregulation of mTOR complex 1 is implicated in a variety of pathological conditions such as cancer, neurodegeneration, and the rare tumor syndrome Tuberous Sclerosis Complex. Current drugs to inhibit mTOR complex 1 (rapamycin and rapalogs) fall short in regards to efficacy and safety. Thus, there is a large unmet medical need for novel mTOR complex 1 therapies. Aukera Therapeutics is a spin-off from the Biozentrum of the University of Basel. CEO Dr. Stefan Imseng, Head of Biology Dritan Liko, Medicinal Chemist Dr. Werner Neidhart, and Scientific advisors of University of Basel Prof. Michael N. Hall and Prof. Timm Maier are working together on their discovery engine that enables the development of new classes of pharmaceutical drugs to selectively target different branches of the mTOR pathway. Based on their own academic research at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel, they follow a small molecule drug discovery and development approach, applied to novel targets. Their lead program selectively targets mTOR complex 1 with an innovative mode of action to overcome the shortcomings of conventional inhibitors. The team uses biochemical, cellular, and in vivo assays, to develop and patent lead compounds during the preclinical phase.
Truly selective mTOR complex 1 inhibitors for the treatment Tuberous Sclerosis Complex have an estimated total accessible market at CHF 1.2 Bio (USA+EU+CH).
They will use Venture Kick funds for preclinical development and patenting costs.
Due to demographical changes, eye diseases will increase by 35% within the next 10 years. However, the number of ophthalmologists will remain stable or even decrease. Even today it is very difficult for patients to get easy access to an eye exam. In some areas, patients wait more than 6 months for an appointment. In addition, approximately 75% of the population has not been seen by an eye doctor for the last 3-5 years. Keeping in mind that statistically, 10-15% of the population suffer from eye problems, this leads to a large number of potentially undetected, sight-threatening eye diseases.
CheckupPoint is a telemedicine startup that offers easy, quick, and affordable access to eye screenings at the highest medical standards. Early detection could prevent 75% of blindness worldwide. Hence, the interdisciplinary founder team around Dr. Jörg-Christian Kirr, Christoph Haarburger and Benedikt Wiechers aims to prevent unnecessary vision loss - globally. Dr. Jörg-Christian Kirr was the initiator of the idea, which he developed during his multi-year efforts in the Scandinavian public eye screening programs. Christoph Haarburger was the CTO of a MedTech startup in the field of tele-radiology and Benedikt Wiechers headed the deep-tech startup accelerator program of RWTH Aachen university in Germany and has a background in strategy consulting. CheckupPoints' telemedical service points on partner sites (opticians, pharmacies, etc.) build the bridge between customers, partners, and ophthalmologists. The examinations are provided by board-certified ophthalmologists that are connected to our encrypted cloud platform. In parallel, they develop medical AI products that help to facilitate screenings and aim to decode the human eye. They support their patients along their whole patient journey, starting with initial screenings, referrals and appointments with local eye doctors, and regular checkups. In the D-A-CH region are approx. 100 Mio people. CheckupPoint targets the general population and invites them to regular eye screenings with their B2B2C business model. There are approximately 35000 opticians and pharmacies as potential B2B partners to provide their service in this region alone.
They plan to use the Venture Kick funds to expand their team to facilitate the operational business and research efforts. Especially, the funds will help the development of their medical AI solutions, which the teams develops in cooperation with leading research institutes and clinics in Switzerland and Germany.
Traditional, state-of-the-art speakers use less than 50% of the electric driver's potential. The reason is that a conventional speaker box only outputs the forward sound generated by the membrane but cancels the generated backward sound to avoid an acoustic short. This requires not only additional acoustic components and a lot more electricity but is also degrading the sound. To solve this problem, it is necessary to rethink the design and functionality of a conventional speaker box. So far this was limited by traditional manufacturing processes such as injection molding.
Industrial Designer Verena Hutter, Ph.D. student at ETH Zürich Manuel Biedermann, Business strategist Florian Erhorn, and Acoustic consultant Peter Chapman are developing a high-performance speaker for audiophile experts. The speaker optimizes, reinforces, and extends acoustic frequencies solely through geometry. Novel processes of 3D printing are used to fabricate the speaker. Possible applications are products such as listening aids, loudspeaker components, or components for the optimized transfer of ultrasonic waves. The most promising application of their concept is a loudspeaker for the audiophile segment. The market for professional audio equipment is a large-sized market, which has been constantly growing in the last 10 -20 years. The home audio segment has doubled in size compared to 8 years ago and currently generates sales of over €509 million per year in Germany alone.
They plan to use the Venture Kick funds for market research and patent application, design and fabrication of prototypes, and testing and optimization of the speaker's acoustic.
Refluenced: revolutionizing influencer marketing
In five to ten years every Head of Marketing will be grown up with social media. Refluenced's team build a marketing tool for now and the future. On average a person spends 58 minutes daily on Instagram. Companies should be active where their users are. But influencer marketing is complex, time-consuming, expansive, and inaccessible.
Refluenced, composed of Co-Founders and CEO Quirin Hasler, CTO Jonas Holzer, CCO Nicola Dutoit aim at revolutionizing influencer marketing. They combine the work platform Upwork with the matching platform Tinder and apply it to the influencer market. Their solution is to scale and automate influencer marketing with a search, matching, and communication platform. Just as Upwork revolutionized the working environment, our platform is designed to do the same in the influencer market. Refluenced brings influencers together with companies efficiently and easily. They estimate their market size D/A/CH to be 3.4 million SMEs, 3 million events, 240`000 gastronomy businesses and hotels, and 130`000 online shops. In the first year, they plan to execute 200 campaigns and expand to south Germany.
They will use the Venture Kick funds for IT expenses to optimize the platform and add new features.