Startup developing a safe laser powder bed fusion machine, a plastic action and circular economy platform, drug therapies for bone health, a personal metabolic health analysis platform, and an autonomous vineyard vehicle each win CHF 10,000
11.08.2022
a-metal, Ampliphi, compagOs, Maven Health, and STEVmotion, project VineaTrac win Venture Kick's first stage of financial and entrepreneurial support. Their projects make metal 3d printing more accessible to the broad industry; build a SaaS platform that helps brands and retailers understand their footprint; provide early efficacy tests for bone drugs; empower primary healthcare providers to identify people who are at risk but have not yet been identified by the traditional healthcare system; and allows winemakers to stop doing repetitive tasks and focus their labor on tasks with more added value.
 Clockwise from top left: Team leadership of a-metal, Ampliphi, STEVmotion, Maven Health, and compagOs.
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 a-metal: Stephan Steiner and Andreas Kuster.
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 Ampliphi: Noah Godfrey, Anjali Mahadevia, Dominic Santschi
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 MavenHealth: Kevin Hof and Christopher Wall.
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 compagOs: Gian Nutal Schädli
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 STEVmotion, project VineaTrac: Marc Stevanin
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a-metal: Making metal 3d printing more accessible to the broad industry
Today, there are many obstacles for SMEs or inexperienced enterprises to get into additive manufacturing technologies. Especially for metal-based AM technologies, machines are very expensive, very big and the handling is unsafe. We talked to more than ten potential customers so far and asked them about their entry-level barriers. Letters of interest already show that there is a great match to address their needs and we offer a valuable product to enter the technology. The technology will be used mainly in the automotive, aerospace, medical and jewelry industry as well as r&d and education.
a-metal team consists of co-founders Stephan Steiner with MSc in Mechanical Engineering from ETH Zurich, and Andreas Kuster, a student at FHNW in Brugg. Their vision is to boost the innovation power and sustainability of the economy by making metal 3d printing more accessible to the broad industry. Thanks to their affordable, compact, and safe machine solution, they enable SMEs, small R&D departments, and the education sector to enter into professional metal additive manufacturing. Besides the compact desktop machine, they provide the needed powder material in sealed cartridges and an easy-to-use software package. The machine can be operated by any person with an artisan background and does not need a cleanroom environment, which reduces infrastructure costs. The additive manufacturing market is a fast-growing USD 11 billion markets.
The funds granted from Venture Kick will be used to start promoting their product via website and trade fairs as well as setting up a professional appearance. In addition, the budget will be used for essential software development to make the prototype machine ready to be operated by the first evaluation customers. www.a-metal.com.
Ampliphi: Plastic action and circular economy platform
Plastic pollution has risen to the top of the global agenda due to its devastating environmental, social, and economic impacts. Today, 91% of plastic waste is not recycled and the problem of plastic pollution is only poised to intensify. In response, stakeholders all over the globe are calling for a circular economy for plastics. But decision-makers are often left rudderless to decipher the best strategies for corporate action and capital deployment.
With Ampliphi, the team - composed of Dominic Santschi, Product & Partnerships Lead with MSc from Imperial College London, graduated from FHNW, and Noah Godfrey, Tech & Marketing Lead with Tech & Economics Background - built a SaaS platform that helps brands and retailers understand their footprint, reduce their waste generation and seamlessly report their progress to consumers and regulators. Here's how it works: First, their cloud-based onboarding sequence and APIs simplify the gathering and upload of relevant enterprise data. Next, we harness the power of data analytics to recommend bespoke initiatives that reduce a company's waste generation. Finally, they help businesses streamline mandatory and voluntary reporting, storytelling, and stakeholder engagement. Over time, the plastic management and accounting market are prone to follow a similar growth trajectory as the carbon market and eventually, reach a similar TAM by 2025 with an expected amount of USD 7.36 billion.
They plan to use the Venture Kick funds to explore API integrations, contract specialist consultants and data analysts, and further automate the reporting and disclosure process of the sponsor's data. ampliphi.io
compagOs: Enhancing drug therapy for bone health with a personalized in vitro diagnostic platform
Standard drug therapies for bone diseases are often ineffective. Current treatment options focus on a „one size fits it all strategy“, not taking into account the wide genetic varability throughout the patient population, which leads to varying drug responses. For example, for an osteoporosis patient it takes at least one year to determine drug efficacy. If the drug is ineffective, healthcare costs and fracture risk inevitably increase.
compagOs offers an in vitro diagnostics service for personalized medicine in the field of frailty and rare bone diseases based on our proprietary bone organoid technology and know-how. Their core technology is an in vitro diagnostic platform that combines personalized bone organoids created from the patient’s own cells with a growing database of clinical biomarker and next generation sequencing data. Using this method, the team can provide early efficacy tests for bone drugs in a time-efficient and safe in vitro environment. From these tests, the optimal treatment for each patient can be found before treatment begins.
The team is led by Gian Nutal Schädli (CEO), PhD in Bone Tissue Engineering and Imaging from ETH who together with Robert Baumann (CTO), MSc. in Mech Eng, Barna Gal (CPO), MD in Orthopedics and Chris Steffi (CSO), PhD in Molecular Biology and Tissue Engineering will drive automation of the technology platform, product development and customer acquisition as well as scientific development. In Europe, annual treatment costs for osteoporosis already exceed CHF 50 billion. The aging population and the slow progress in drug development exacerbate the problem. The team behind compagOs will help to leverage personalized and targeted strategies to efficiently use the currently available drugs. They strive to provide the best possible therapy for each and every patient.
The Venturekick funds from the first stage will be used to build customer relationships and prepare pilot studies. www.compagos.ch
Maven Health: Empowering primary healthcare providers to measure metabolic health improving effectiveness of their preventive healthcare initiatives
To maintain affordable and high-quality healthcare services a pivot is needed from traditional curative health care to preventive health care. Primary care health professionals are eager to use new methods to accommodate this shift but lack the technology, scale, and data science to move forward. Current standard blood tests are invasive, infrequent, and often over- or underestimate the risk for metabolic diseases. To achieve effective preventive health care, personalized tests are essential. Maven Health generates an accurate picture of personal metabolic health through our proprietary data platform which combines machine learning algorithms, data infrastructure, and metabolomics.
The team consists of Christopher Wall, a pharmacist with a Ph.D. in metabolism from the EPFL, and Kevin Hof, a medical biotechnologist with a lot of experience as a data scientist and team leader. Their goal is to empower primary healthcare providers to identify people at risk of metabolic diseases but who would otherwise be missed by the traditional healthcare system. Maven Health closely collaborates with primary care providers to finetune the specific targets and outcomes of their testing, making their outputs directly applicable to the current healthcare system. The health analyses are generated from the metabolite profiles of saliva, which is collected non-invasively. Metabolites are measured by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, a technology that has seen reduction in cost and increase in sensitivity in recent years. Strong growth is predicted in the Swiss preventive healthcare market, from CHF 2.9 billion in 2022 up to CHF 7.7 billion in 2028.
Venture Kick funds will be allocated to business development and method development with their collaborators from the EPFL in Lausanne and the VU in Amsterdam. www.mavenhealth.ch
STEVmotion, project VineaTrac: Smart agriculture on track
Winemakers fear driving their tractors in steep vineyards. Deadly accidents occur every year. The cost of labor kills a part of the winemakers' business. Employee proximity with spraying pesticides is an issue for the health. A transition to organic production is desired and will probably become mandatory by law in the next years. This will induce much more labor but in addition to that, the organic products used are washable by rain. The fields are not passable in wet conditions by standard tractors.
VineaTrac is an autonomous vineyard vehicle that allows winemakers to stop doing repetitive tasks and focus their labor on tasks with more added value. This vehicle will substitute the trio (driver, tractor, working machine) with a duo (autonomous vehicle, working machine). The new duo will be able without human labor to achieve all the already mechanized vineyard tasks. The future company STEVmotion, funded by Marc Stevanin, an employee as Ra&D project manager for "Institut d'Automatisation Industriel" of the HEIG-VD, will develop the software with advanced algorithms using machine learning and AI as well as vehicle construction and product distribution. Valérie Marendaz is a vinemarker that provide agricultural expertise. There are 14'000 hectares of vineyards in Switzerland. Half of the area is vineyards that are difficult to practice. That introduces a total need for 2'000 machines, therefore a total market value of CHF 120 million.
The Venture kick funds will help them with the production of 5 units, increase the customer relationship to have more Beta testers, and develop the better user interface possible to offer a better user experience. stev-motion.com
Today, there are many obstacles for SMEs or inexperienced enterprises to get into additive manufacturing technologies. Especially for metal-based AM technologies, machines are very expensive, very big and the handling is unsafe. We talked to more than ten potential customers so far and asked them about their entry-level barriers. Letters of interest already show that there is a great match to address their needs and we offer a valuable product to enter the technology. The technology will be used mainly in the automotive, aerospace, medical and jewelry industry as well as r&d and education.
a-metal team consists of co-founders Stephan Steiner with MSc in Mechanical Engineering from ETH Zurich, and Andreas Kuster, a student at FHNW in Brugg. Their vision is to boost the innovation power and sustainability of the economy by making metal 3d printing more accessible to the broad industry. Thanks to their affordable, compact, and safe machine solution, they enable SMEs, small R&D departments, and the education sector to enter into professional metal additive manufacturing. Besides the compact desktop machine, they provide the needed powder material in sealed cartridges and an easy-to-use software package. The machine can be operated by any person with an artisan background and does not need a cleanroom environment, which reduces infrastructure costs. The additive manufacturing market is a fast-growing USD 11 billion markets.
The funds granted from Venture Kick will be used to start promoting their product via website and trade fairs as well as setting up a professional appearance. In addition, the budget will be used for essential software development to make the prototype machine ready to be operated by the first evaluation customers. www.a-metal.com.
Ampliphi: Plastic action and circular economy platform
Plastic pollution has risen to the top of the global agenda due to its devastating environmental, social, and economic impacts. Today, 91% of plastic waste is not recycled and the problem of plastic pollution is only poised to intensify. In response, stakeholders all over the globe are calling for a circular economy for plastics. But decision-makers are often left rudderless to decipher the best strategies for corporate action and capital deployment.
With Ampliphi, the team - composed of Dominic Santschi, Product & Partnerships Lead with MSc from Imperial College London, graduated from FHNW, and Noah Godfrey, Tech & Marketing Lead with Tech & Economics Background - built a SaaS platform that helps brands and retailers understand their footprint, reduce their waste generation and seamlessly report their progress to consumers and regulators. Here's how it works: First, their cloud-based onboarding sequence and APIs simplify the gathering and upload of relevant enterprise data. Next, we harness the power of data analytics to recommend bespoke initiatives that reduce a company's waste generation. Finally, they help businesses streamline mandatory and voluntary reporting, storytelling, and stakeholder engagement. Over time, the plastic management and accounting market are prone to follow a similar growth trajectory as the carbon market and eventually, reach a similar TAM by 2025 with an expected amount of USD 7.36 billion.
They plan to use the Venture Kick funds to explore API integrations, contract specialist consultants and data analysts, and further automate the reporting and disclosure process of the sponsor's data. ampliphi.io
compagOs: Enhancing drug therapy for bone health with a personalized in vitro diagnostic platform
Standard drug therapies for bone diseases are often ineffective. Current treatment options focus on a „one size fits it all strategy“, not taking into account the wide genetic varability throughout the patient population, which leads to varying drug responses. For example, for an osteoporosis patient it takes at least one year to determine drug efficacy. If the drug is ineffective, healthcare costs and fracture risk inevitably increase.
compagOs offers an in vitro diagnostics service for personalized medicine in the field of frailty and rare bone diseases based on our proprietary bone organoid technology and know-how. Their core technology is an in vitro diagnostic platform that combines personalized bone organoids created from the patient’s own cells with a growing database of clinical biomarker and next generation sequencing data. Using this method, the team can provide early efficacy tests for bone drugs in a time-efficient and safe in vitro environment. From these tests, the optimal treatment for each patient can be found before treatment begins.
The team is led by Gian Nutal Schädli (CEO), PhD in Bone Tissue Engineering and Imaging from ETH who together with Robert Baumann (CTO), MSc. in Mech Eng, Barna Gal (CPO), MD in Orthopedics and Chris Steffi (CSO), PhD in Molecular Biology and Tissue Engineering will drive automation of the technology platform, product development and customer acquisition as well as scientific development. In Europe, annual treatment costs for osteoporosis already exceed CHF 50 billion. The aging population and the slow progress in drug development exacerbate the problem. The team behind compagOs will help to leverage personalized and targeted strategies to efficiently use the currently available drugs. They strive to provide the best possible therapy for each and every patient.
The Venturekick funds from the first stage will be used to build customer relationships and prepare pilot studies. www.compagos.ch
Maven Health: Empowering primary healthcare providers to measure metabolic health improving effectiveness of their preventive healthcare initiatives
To maintain affordable and high-quality healthcare services a pivot is needed from traditional curative health care to preventive health care. Primary care health professionals are eager to use new methods to accommodate this shift but lack the technology, scale, and data science to move forward. Current standard blood tests are invasive, infrequent, and often over- or underestimate the risk for metabolic diseases. To achieve effective preventive health care, personalized tests are essential. Maven Health generates an accurate picture of personal metabolic health through our proprietary data platform which combines machine learning algorithms, data infrastructure, and metabolomics.
The team consists of Christopher Wall, a pharmacist with a Ph.D. in metabolism from the EPFL, and Kevin Hof, a medical biotechnologist with a lot of experience as a data scientist and team leader. Their goal is to empower primary healthcare providers to identify people at risk of metabolic diseases but who would otherwise be missed by the traditional healthcare system. Maven Health closely collaborates with primary care providers to finetune the specific targets and outcomes of their testing, making their outputs directly applicable to the current healthcare system. The health analyses are generated from the metabolite profiles of saliva, which is collected non-invasively. Metabolites are measured by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, a technology that has seen reduction in cost and increase in sensitivity in recent years. Strong growth is predicted in the Swiss preventive healthcare market, from CHF 2.9 billion in 2022 up to CHF 7.7 billion in 2028.
Venture Kick funds will be allocated to business development and method development with their collaborators from the EPFL in Lausanne and the VU in Amsterdam. www.mavenhealth.ch
STEVmotion, project VineaTrac: Smart agriculture on track
Winemakers fear driving their tractors in steep vineyards. Deadly accidents occur every year. The cost of labor kills a part of the winemakers' business. Employee proximity with spraying pesticides is an issue for the health. A transition to organic production is desired and will probably become mandatory by law in the next years. This will induce much more labor but in addition to that, the organic products used are washable by rain. The fields are not passable in wet conditions by standard tractors.
VineaTrac is an autonomous vineyard vehicle that allows winemakers to stop doing repetitive tasks and focus their labor on tasks with more added value. This vehicle will substitute the trio (driver, tractor, working machine) with a duo (autonomous vehicle, working machine). The new duo will be able without human labor to achieve all the already mechanized vineyard tasks. The future company STEVmotion, funded by Marc Stevanin, an employee as Ra&D project manager for "Institut d'Automatisation Industriel" of the HEIG-VD, will develop the software with advanced algorithms using machine learning and AI as well as vehicle construction and product distribution. Valérie Marendaz is a vinemarker that provide agricultural expertise. There are 14'000 hectares of vineyards in Switzerland. Half of the area is vineyards that are difficult to practice. That introduces a total need for 2'000 machines, therefore a total market value of CHF 120 million.
The Venture kick funds will help them with the production of 5 units, increase the customer relationship to have more Beta testers, and develop the better user interface possible to offer a better user experience. stev-motion.com