Startups developing a firefighting drone, a digital marketplace for healthcare replacements, datamanagement for logisitics, robotic manipulation AI models, and a probiotic drink each get CHF 10,000
10.06.2024
BushfireDrone.com, Carewell, LogBook, mimic robotics, and Noosh Drinks were selected at Venture Kick's first financial and entrepreneurial support stage. Their projects develop a drone and forest firefighting services to address the global problem of catastrophic forest fires; provide a digital marketplace to manage replacements in healthcare; help logistics professionals manage their location profiles at scale, solve complex manipulation tasks with a humanoid robotic hand; and develop a probiotic drink to enhance the human gut.
 |
 |
 BushfireDrone: CEO David Posva, CTO Joe Reimann, and Robotics Roberto Apruzzese
|
|
 Carewell: from left to right, Fabian Mösli, Soazig Olivin, Mathieu Dubois, and Josselin Meylan
|
|
 LogBook: CTO Dr. Leonard Goeltl and CEO Bernhard Elkuch
|
|
 mimic robotics: left to right, Stefan Weirich, Elvis Nava, Stephan-Daniel Gravert, Robert Katzschmann, and Benedek Forrai
|
|
 Noosh Drinks: CEO Jordi Espin, COO Mehrdad Asgari, CTO Gaetan Baumgartner, and Advisor Manfred Zinn
|
|
BushfireDrone.com: drone and forest firefighting service to address the global problem of catastrophic forest fires.
Forest fires are becoming more frequent and severe due to human activities and climate change. Drones are crucial for rapid response and reaching remote areas, essential for early detection and firefighting. BushfireDrone.com is developing drone and forest firefighting services to address the global problem of catastrophic forest fires. Their "AX" drone is a large fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) optimized for wildland firefighting missions. The water tanks are refilled by scooping while flying low over open water. An external feasibility study conducted by aircraft and UAV experts at the ZHAW (Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Winterthur) confirmed that their concept offers significant advantages and is very promising. The company will be incorporated in 2024. The founders are David Posva MSc Eng. ETH, Joe Reimann BSc Eng. and Roberto Apruzzese MSc Eng. ZHAW. The further development of the drones and the software for the enhanced services will be carried out with the help of universities and partner companies.
The Venture Kick funds will help accelerate the development of this important tool to save the forest from fire.
LogBook: Because Logistics deserves better Data
Accurate master data about locations is required for many aspects of logistics, from network planning to warehouse lease management, however, the knowledge today lives in disparate Excel sheets, inaccessible and outdated. It's everybody's problem, but nobody's job.
The co-founders are Lenny & Bernhard. While Lenny is responsible for product and technology, Bernhard is focused on the market-facing activities. LogBook helps customers to manage their location profiles at scale. Powered by Al & machine learning, LogBook also provides public transport node data at scale (seaports, airports, intermodal terminals, etc). Furthermore, they enable customers to maintain their own geo-locations (incl. mapping, and adding metadata such as location capabilities, business hours, etc) and to share that data with relevant stakeholders easily.
The funds will contribute to the founding process, product development, and first marketing activities such as trade fairs and the creation of collateral, allowing us to pick up momentum and attract further pilot customers.
mimic robotics: Scalable AI models for universal robotic manipulation
Conventional robotic grippers are designed for particular, repetitive tasks, and lack versatility. The programming of such robots and adaptation to a slightly changing task requires lots of time and expertise. Both grippers and commercially available programming approaches are unsuitable for applying robots to real-world challenges in environments designed for or shared with humans.
The company was incorporated in 2024 as a spin-off from the Soft Robotics Lab at ETH Zurich. Founders include Stefan Weirich, Elvis Nava, Stephan-Daniel Gravert, Benedek Forrai and Prof. Robert Katzschmann. Together with a team of AI researchers and mechanical engineers they are solving complex manipulation tasks with a humanoid robotic hand that’s driven by a robotic transformer model.
The Venture Kick funds will contribute to developing a prototype that can be applied to real-world manipulation challenges at customer sites.
Noosh Drinks: A probiotic drink to enhance the human gut
It is well-known that the gut-brain axis is essential for balanced health. However, factors such as stress and poor nutrition severely impact the gut microbiome, affecting mood and well-being. To address this, Noosh Drinks aims to democratize water kefir, an ancient probiotic drink that helps re-establish diverse gut flora while being low in sugar, offering a sustainable alternative to conventional soft drinks. The recipe has been finely tuned through cutting-edge experimentation to enhance probiotic content while ensuring it remains refreshing, tasty, and healthy.
Research on the probiotic effects and scalability of these drinks began at HES-SO Valais in 2022 by Gaëtan Baumgartner (CTO), under Prof. Manfred Zinn (Advisor), and is coordinated by Dr. Jordi Espin (CEO) and Dr. Mehrdad Asgari (CTO). Identifying the main bacteria and yeast colonies in the kefir grains and final drink has proven their probiotic effect. Further research on human gut simulation experiments will be key to understanding their benefits. Scaling the process to replicate probiotic content in large volumes is a significant challenge.
The Venture Kick funds will be crucial for optimizing the scale-up fermentation process and market access.
Forest fires are becoming more frequent and severe due to human activities and climate change. Drones are crucial for rapid response and reaching remote areas, essential for early detection and firefighting. BushfireDrone.com is developing drone and forest firefighting services to address the global problem of catastrophic forest fires. Their "AX" drone is a large fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) optimized for wildland firefighting missions. The water tanks are refilled by scooping while flying low over open water. An external feasibility study conducted by aircraft and UAV experts at the ZHAW (Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Winterthur) confirmed that their concept offers significant advantages and is very promising. The company will be incorporated in 2024. The founders are David Posva MSc Eng. ETH, Joe Reimann BSc Eng. and Roberto Apruzzese MSc Eng. ZHAW. The further development of the drones and the software for the enhanced services will be carried out with the help of universities and partner companies.
The Venture Kick funds will help accelerate the development of this important tool to save the forest from fire.
Carewell: providing a next-gen healthcare recruitment platform
There is a healthcare staff shortage problem, with close to 11’000 FTEs missing in hospitals and other institutions. This has terrible consequences both for healthcare institutions and professionals: trouble filling in plannings, overworked teams, even more professionals leaving healthcare… which in the end has an impact on patient quality of care.
There is a healthcare staff shortage problem, with close to 11’000 FTEs missing in hospitals and other institutions. This has terrible consequences both for healthcare institutions and professionals: trouble filling in plannings, overworked teams, even more professionals leaving healthcare… which in the end has an impact on patient quality of care.
Carewell is the digital marketplace to manage replacements in healthcare, by matching healthcare institutions’ needs with short-term healthcare staff in search for flexibility through digital processes and an AI matching algorithm. Carewell is currently a team of four (Soazig Olivin (nurse by profession), Mathieu Dubois, Josselin Meylan & Fabian Mösli), going after the CHF 750M market of replacements in healthcare in Switzerland.
They will use the VentureKick Stage 1 funds to further test their assumptions, mainly on their capacity to find the right people through online advertising, The startup will also set-up its technical foundations, as well as fund the development of its MVP to bring the team towards proof-of-concept for later this summer. Finally,they will build the legal framework around their collaboration with partners.
LogBook: Because Logistics deserves better Data
Accurate master data about locations is required for many aspects of logistics, from network planning to warehouse lease management, however, the knowledge today lives in disparate Excel sheets, inaccessible and outdated. It's everybody's problem, but nobody's job.
The co-founders are Lenny & Bernhard. While Lenny is responsible for product and technology, Bernhard is focused on the market-facing activities. LogBook helps customers to manage their location profiles at scale. Powered by Al & machine learning, LogBook also provides public transport node data at scale (seaports, airports, intermodal terminals, etc). Furthermore, they enable customers to maintain their own geo-locations (incl. mapping, and adding metadata such as location capabilities, business hours, etc) and to share that data with relevant stakeholders easily.
The funds will contribute to the founding process, product development, and first marketing activities such as trade fairs and the creation of collateral, allowing us to pick up momentum and attract further pilot customers.
mimic robotics: Scalable AI models for universal robotic manipulation
Conventional robotic grippers are designed for particular, repetitive tasks, and lack versatility. The programming of such robots and adaptation to a slightly changing task requires lots of time and expertise. Both grippers and commercially available programming approaches are unsuitable for applying robots to real-world challenges in environments designed for or shared with humans.
The company was incorporated in 2024 as a spin-off from the Soft Robotics Lab at ETH Zurich. Founders include Stefan Weirich, Elvis Nava, Stephan-Daniel Gravert, Benedek Forrai and Prof. Robert Katzschmann. Together with a team of AI researchers and mechanical engineers they are solving complex manipulation tasks with a humanoid robotic hand that’s driven by a robotic transformer model.
The Venture Kick funds will contribute to developing a prototype that can be applied to real-world manipulation challenges at customer sites.
Noosh Drinks: A probiotic drink to enhance the human gut
It is well-known that the gut-brain axis is essential for balanced health. However, factors such as stress and poor nutrition severely impact the gut microbiome, affecting mood and well-being. To address this, Noosh Drinks aims to democratize water kefir, an ancient probiotic drink that helps re-establish diverse gut flora while being low in sugar, offering a sustainable alternative to conventional soft drinks. The recipe has been finely tuned through cutting-edge experimentation to enhance probiotic content while ensuring it remains refreshing, tasty, and healthy.
Research on the probiotic effects and scalability of these drinks began at HES-SO Valais in 2022 by Gaëtan Baumgartner (CTO), under Prof. Manfred Zinn (Advisor), and is coordinated by Dr. Jordi Espin (CEO) and Dr. Mehrdad Asgari (CTO). Identifying the main bacteria and yeast colonies in the kefir grains and final drink has proven their probiotic effect. Further research on human gut simulation experiments will be key to understanding their benefits. Scaling the process to replicate probiotic content in large volumes is a significant challenge.
The Venture Kick funds will be crucial for optimizing the scale-up fermentation process and market access.