Startups Developing Sustainable Bio Based Materials, Customized Anti-Pollution Masks, Tissue-Engineered Implants Which can Grow With the Patient, a Marking Technology for Plastic Parts and New Interactive Tools for Gaming Each win CHF 10,000
25.05.2020
Cocoboards, Helvitek Labs, LifeMatrix, matriq and STUDIO KOH Teams win Venture Kick’s financial and entrepreneurial support. Their projects offer an alternative to wood-based composites, create a new generation of urban anti-pollution masks, enables patient's cells to transform implants into living tissue, brands and industrials to track their plastic parts and give users an immersion experience without being cut off from the world.
1.jpg) matriq, Lifematrix, Cocoboards, HelvitekLabs, STUDIO KOH
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.jpg) Cocoboards' Co-founders Michail Kyriazopoulos and Daniel Dinizo
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 Helvetik Labs's cofounders Théo-Tim Denisart and Roberto Costa
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 LifeMatrix Team, photo credits: Wyss Zurich www.wysszurich.ch
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.jpg) matriq team
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.jpg) STUDIO KOH's Co-founders Raphaël Briner and Jean François Groff
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Cocoboards: Sustainable and affordable bio-based materials
The wood-based composite industry is growing tremendously and facing severe pricing pressure for its raw material. Many countries are forced to import high volumes of wood products due to a lack of natural resources and environmental policies. Cocoboards’ co-founders Michail Kyriazopoulos, inventor and responsible for product and technology development, and Daniel Dinizo, in charge of business operations, both studied wood technology at BFH. They created Cocoboards, a cleantech company that develops technology to upcycle local agricultural waste into affordable, highly functional and sustainable products for the furniture and construction industry. Their first product, Cocoboard™, is an all-natural fiberboard made of coconut husk and bio-based adhesive, designed in Switzerland and manufactured in the Philippines. Their mission is to implement a circular economy approach while restricting deforestation and boosting local production of sustainable products. The Venture Kick funds will support customer discovery, industrial scale trials and team expansion.
Helvitek Labs: a new generation of urban anti-pollution masks
Current anti-pollution masks don't offer adequate protection or comfort because of bad fit to the face. Helvetik Labs, a Lausanne-based start-up founded in 2019 by Théo-Tim Denisart, a graduate of the EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne) and Roberto Costa, former marketing director at Swatch tackles this issue by developing the next generation of urban anti-pollution mask, made in Switzerland.. After experiencing numerous trips to China where the two partners came face to face with the deadly issue of fine particle pollution, they decided partner up in order to create a desirable mask that will become an essential product of urban lifewear. They focus on innovative material and design by collaborating with award winning Swiss Designers at BMCO. Following a fast pace of development, they are now starting the industrialization of their product to commercialize it by the end of 2020.
LifeMatrix: Biomimetic Cardiovascular Solutions for Life
Globally, one out of 100 children is born with a heart defect. In severe cases the diseased cardiovascular tissue needs to be replaced surgically. The currently used synthetic or animal derived materials do not grow or regenerate with the patient and therefore cause severe clinical problems and need to be replaced several times throughout the patient’s lifetime.
LifeMatrix is active in the fast-growing field of “medical biomimetics” and has developed a unique tissue engineering technology to grow human replacement tissues in the laboratory as next generation implants for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. The patented LifeMatrix tissues can be manufactured as heart valves, blood vessels and other cardiovascular structures. When implanted, the patient's own cells will transform the LifeMatrix tissue into living heart valves and blood vessels which can grow and regenerate with the patient. The LifeMatrix implants are off-the-shelf products, scalable, cost-effective, non-immunogenic and therefore applicable to every patient. The disruptive LifeMatrix technology has the potential to overcome the significant limitations of existing implants and revolutionize the medical device industry. Developed at the University of Zurich, the award winning LifeMatrix technology platform is backed by >20 years of research with >100 peer-reviewed publications and a strong patent portfolio. The team around Prof. Maximilian Emmert, Rene Stenger (co-founders) and Robin Müller (Project Manager) is dedicated to drive the clinical translation of the technology forward and to bring biomimetic cardiovascular solutions to the patient. LifeMatrix is currently supported by the Wyss Zurich, a joint accelerator of the ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich. Thanks to the VentureKick funds the team aims at accelerating the process of spinning out the technology from the University and preparing a Series A financing round.
matriq: a novel in-line marking technology for plastic parts
Nowadays, products in their life cycle often must be recognized as an individual for traceability. Products in medtech, automotive, and industry today are often labelled (stickers) or laser-marked for this purpose. Co-founders André, Klaus, Cornelia, and Mathias (all NTB Buchs) are working with Prof Zbinden (HSR), Dr. Lamprecht (NTB) and Prof. Kristiansen (FHNW) and developed a novel mold insert, that embosses individual machine-readable 2D-codes on every single device. Their “DynamicMold” technology allows to directly mark every single plastic component with an individual code in their forming process, without adding manufacturing time or facility space. Even the combination of individual codes with optical security structures can be provided. matriq's innovation will replace the conventional downstream technologies, at lower cost and reduced complexity, higher speed, smarter, and, at the same time, counterfeit-proof and unique. The market for product marking is very large, for traceability around EUR 7 bn, (7% CAGR) and anti-counterfeit goods in EU worth >EUR 60 bn. The team plans to use Venture kick funds to set-up a test site for demonstrating versatility and increase visibility of their technology.
STUDIO KOH: reinventing telepresence
This semi-stealth company is preparing to shake the industry of 360° cameras and displays. KOH have registered their own and unique design that will foster a new human-machine interaction. The team behind the product is composed of serial entrepreneurs: Raphaël Briner, who founded HyperWeek (sold to Elium, BE), from the University of Neuchâtel (Unine) and Jean-François Groff, who founded Mobino (sold to a major swiss bank) and contributed to development of the web libraries 30 years ago. KOH’s USP is its emotional dimension with an immersion without being cut off from the world -unlike VR masks-. Koh will initially deliver on telepresence and 360° content sharing. They have a working prototype and plan to sell in few months their developer kits via private sales to test the markets and be the first on the field. The Venture Kick funds will be used to prepare launch, hire some developers, test and gain customer insights, patents, marketing and sales material.
The wood-based composite industry is growing tremendously and facing severe pricing pressure for its raw material. Many countries are forced to import high volumes of wood products due to a lack of natural resources and environmental policies. Cocoboards’ co-founders Michail Kyriazopoulos, inventor and responsible for product and technology development, and Daniel Dinizo, in charge of business operations, both studied wood technology at BFH. They created Cocoboards, a cleantech company that develops technology to upcycle local agricultural waste into affordable, highly functional and sustainable products for the furniture and construction industry. Their first product, Cocoboard™, is an all-natural fiberboard made of coconut husk and bio-based adhesive, designed in Switzerland and manufactured in the Philippines. Their mission is to implement a circular economy approach while restricting deforestation and boosting local production of sustainable products. The Venture Kick funds will support customer discovery, industrial scale trials and team expansion.
Helvitek Labs: a new generation of urban anti-pollution masks
Current anti-pollution masks don't offer adequate protection or comfort because of bad fit to the face. Helvetik Labs, a Lausanne-based start-up founded in 2019 by Théo-Tim Denisart, a graduate of the EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne) and Roberto Costa, former marketing director at Swatch tackles this issue by developing the next generation of urban anti-pollution mask, made in Switzerland.. After experiencing numerous trips to China where the two partners came face to face with the deadly issue of fine particle pollution, they decided partner up in order to create a desirable mask that will become an essential product of urban lifewear. They focus on innovative material and design by collaborating with award winning Swiss Designers at BMCO. Following a fast pace of development, they are now starting the industrialization of their product to commercialize it by the end of 2020.
LifeMatrix: Biomimetic Cardiovascular Solutions for Life
Globally, one out of 100 children is born with a heart defect. In severe cases the diseased cardiovascular tissue needs to be replaced surgically. The currently used synthetic or animal derived materials do not grow or regenerate with the patient and therefore cause severe clinical problems and need to be replaced several times throughout the patient’s lifetime.
LifeMatrix is active in the fast-growing field of “medical biomimetics” and has developed a unique tissue engineering technology to grow human replacement tissues in the laboratory as next generation implants for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. The patented LifeMatrix tissues can be manufactured as heart valves, blood vessels and other cardiovascular structures. When implanted, the patient's own cells will transform the LifeMatrix tissue into living heart valves and blood vessels which can grow and regenerate with the patient. The LifeMatrix implants are off-the-shelf products, scalable, cost-effective, non-immunogenic and therefore applicable to every patient. The disruptive LifeMatrix technology has the potential to overcome the significant limitations of existing implants and revolutionize the medical device industry. Developed at the University of Zurich, the award winning LifeMatrix technology platform is backed by >20 years of research with >100 peer-reviewed publications and a strong patent portfolio. The team around Prof. Maximilian Emmert, Rene Stenger (co-founders) and Robin Müller (Project Manager) is dedicated to drive the clinical translation of the technology forward and to bring biomimetic cardiovascular solutions to the patient. LifeMatrix is currently supported by the Wyss Zurich, a joint accelerator of the ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich. Thanks to the VentureKick funds the team aims at accelerating the process of spinning out the technology from the University and preparing a Series A financing round.
matriq: a novel in-line marking technology for plastic parts
Nowadays, products in their life cycle often must be recognized as an individual for traceability. Products in medtech, automotive, and industry today are often labelled (stickers) or laser-marked for this purpose. Co-founders André, Klaus, Cornelia, and Mathias (all NTB Buchs) are working with Prof Zbinden (HSR), Dr. Lamprecht (NTB) and Prof. Kristiansen (FHNW) and developed a novel mold insert, that embosses individual machine-readable 2D-codes on every single device. Their “DynamicMold” technology allows to directly mark every single plastic component with an individual code in their forming process, without adding manufacturing time or facility space. Even the combination of individual codes with optical security structures can be provided. matriq's innovation will replace the conventional downstream technologies, at lower cost and reduced complexity, higher speed, smarter, and, at the same time, counterfeit-proof and unique. The market for product marking is very large, for traceability around EUR 7 bn, (7% CAGR) and anti-counterfeit goods in EU worth >EUR 60 bn. The team plans to use Venture kick funds to set-up a test site for demonstrating versatility and increase visibility of their technology.
STUDIO KOH: reinventing telepresence
This semi-stealth company is preparing to shake the industry of 360° cameras and displays. KOH have registered their own and unique design that will foster a new human-machine interaction. The team behind the product is composed of serial entrepreneurs: Raphaël Briner, who founded HyperWeek (sold to Elium, BE), from the University of Neuchâtel (Unine) and Jean-François Groff, who founded Mobino (sold to a major swiss bank) and contributed to development of the web libraries 30 years ago. KOH’s USP is its emotional dimension with an immersion without being cut off from the world -unlike VR masks-. Koh will initially deliver on telepresence and 360° content sharing. They have a working prototype and plan to sell in few months their developer kits via private sales to test the markets and be the first on the field. The Venture Kick funds will be used to prepare launch, hire some developers, test and gain customer insights, patents, marketing and sales material.