Startups developing an AI-chat interface for B2B Wholesaler, the next-gen smart drug-eluting coating, smart wind energy, expert ultrasound access, and automated, gentle organoid sorting each get CHF 10,000
21.05.2024
Hoshii, INCAPTEK, PitchMe, Scanvio Medical, and Visienco were selected at Venture Kick's first financial and entrepreneurial support stage. Their projects integrate with major ERPs and CRMs allowing customers to consolidate information sources, extract insights from unstructured data, and increase productivity by 10x; innovate on smart microcapsules with a controlled drug-release function; offer smart wind energy as a service to help farmers, SMEs, and local authorities achieve energetic independence; democratize expert ultrasound; and develop the Orgadroid to simplify the inspection, sorting, and individualization of large 3D cell models, while keeping those precious samples safe and sound.
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 Hoshii: from left to right, Chihiro Co-Founder/Lead AI, Ayoub Chouak Co-Founder/CTO, and Jiir Awdir Co-Founder/CEO.
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 INCAPTEK: CEO Olga Fontanellaz, CSO Gleb Sukhorukov, and CTO Yury Moshkin
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 PitchMe: Daniel Fernex (CTO) and Sebastien Le Fouest (CEO)
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 Scanvio Medical: CTO Fabian Laumer and CEO Stefan Tuchschmid
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 Visienco: COO Lucie Jandet and CEO Jonas Goldowsky
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Hoshii: AI-powered chat interface for B2B wholesalers
2.6 Million wholesalers in Europe and the US struggle with their customer operations. It’s an extremely resource-intensive task, requires the maintenance of multiple communication channels and the scattered data silos make it difficult to extract actionable insights on a business’s own customers and performance.
Hoshii centralizes all B2B wholesaler communications into a single, AI-powered chat interface. Their product integrates with major ERPs and CRMs allowing customers to consolidate information sources, extract insights from unstructured data and increase productivity by 10x. Jiir Awdir Co-Founder/CEO holds a master degree from the University St. Gallen and has worked for Swisscom, Roche and Baloise in the past. Ayoub Chouak Co-Founder/CTO holds a double degree master in CS majoring in cloud computing and cyber security from Aalto University and the Technical University of Denmark, he has previously worked for Taurus, Niantic, CERN and Huawei. Chihiro Co-Founder/Lead AI holds a master degree in mathematics from ETH. He is leading their AI development and has previously worked for Japanese tech firms.
The Venture Kick Fund will contribute to the initial development of the product as well as customer acquisition.
INCAPTEK: Next-generation smart drug-eluting coatings for medical devices
Infections associated with medical devices are a health burden worldwide. They increase patients' mortality risk and financial burden on the healthcare system. These infections can be reduced by a wider adoption of antimicrobial coatings. However, due to the fast drug release, their efficacy is limited, calling for action.
INCAPTEK found a solution. The start-up was founded by Olga Fontanellaz (CEO) and two leading scientists, Prof Gleb Sukhorukov (CSO), an inventor of layer-by-layer microencapsulation, and Yury Moshkin, PhD (CTO). At the core of their innovation are smart microcapsules with a controlled drug-release function. When attached to the surface of medical devices, these microcapsules produce smart coatings that ensure prolonged and sequential release of multiple antimicrobial drugs for efficient protection from infections. INCAPTEK first targets the market of surgical meshes and sutures, valued at US$657 M in 2024, representing an attractive niche.
The team plans to use the Venture Kick funds to conduct in-depth market research in this field. incaptek.com
PitchMe: smart wind energy as a service to help farmers, SMEs, and local authorities achieve energetic independence.
Wind power offers the lowest cost of electricity but wind turbines suffer from low social acceptance and the scarcity of exploitable land. PitchMe develops a 30-metre tall vertical-axis wind turbine with orientable wings and 100kW rated power. These turbines are quiet in operation, fauna-friendly, and require only a third of the space compared to traditional turbines.
PitchMe is an EPFL spin-off project that launched in October 2023 with a BRIDGE PoC grant, led by Sebastien Le Fouest (CEO) and Daniel Fernex (CTO). Our unique selling proposition is an under-patenting control software that orients the turbine wings in real time to optimize performance and extend the turbine's lifetime in all wind conditions. This control software enables a competitive cost of electricity (~6.5cts/kWh) and a wind turbine payback time of 6.5 years. There is a 12.2 GW yearly demand for new commercial-scale power applications, opening a CHF 17.2 B market size.
The Venture Kick funds will help accelerate our technical development at an industrial scale with wind tunnel testing and improve our visibility and traction.
Scanvio Medical: Democratize expert ultrasound
Endometriosis affects 10% of all women, and it takes an average of 8–12 years to get a diagnosis. The medical condition can cause heavy pain, excessive bleeding, and infertility, and the diagnosis typically requires an invasive laparoscopic surgery.
Scanvio uses AI to empower every gynecologist to diagnose endometriosis during a standard ultrasound examination. The company’s machine learning solution detects and highlights telltale signs of endometriosis in a noisy ultrasound video, and targets the USD 1.6 B AI in the ultrasound market, a subset of the USD 8.5B medical ultrasound equipment market.
CTO Dr. Fabian Laumer developed intelligent algorithms for ultrasound interpretation during his ETH Ph.D. research and is now taking advantage of the decades of OB/GYN experience amassed by CMO Prof. Michael Bajka, M.D. Scanvio’s founding team also includes CEO and serial entrepreneur Dr. Stefan Tuchschmid, Julian Metzler, M.D., Gabriel Fringeli, and Prof.Dr. Joachim Buhmann.
Thanks to the Venture Kick prize money, Scanvio will be able to build a first product demonstrator and showcase the concept at the annual meeting of the Swiss Society for Gynecology and Obstetrics at the end of June. scanvio.com
Visienco: Bringing automated, gentle organoid sorting to your lab
A newly developed drug today creates costs of USD 1.5 B. To reduce this cost, 3D cell culture models have been established, more relevant in their physiological response than easier structures. Such 3D cell models often come in bulk and mixed quality, thus requiring sorting before being used for drug screening. Visienco offers a sorting device, the Orgadroid, that automates this labor-intensive, tiring task.
The company Visienco, a CSEM spin-off, is currently supported by the CSEMs Accelerator program. The founders Lucie Jandet and Jonas Goldowsky are long-term employees of CSEM and have been working on organoid sorting technologies since 2021. In cooperation with their partners, they developed the Orgadroid to simplify the inspection, sorting, and individualization of large 3D cell models, while keeping those precious samples safe and sound. AI models are used to automatically assess the quality of each organoid based on the brightfield microscope images acquired by the Orgadroid.
With the support of Venture Kick, they will now expand their network of pilot users, scientific advisors, and technology providers to bring the Orgadroid to market. visienco.ch
2.6 Million wholesalers in Europe and the US struggle with their customer operations. It’s an extremely resource-intensive task, requires the maintenance of multiple communication channels and the scattered data silos make it difficult to extract actionable insights on a business’s own customers and performance.
Hoshii centralizes all B2B wholesaler communications into a single, AI-powered chat interface. Their product integrates with major ERPs and CRMs allowing customers to consolidate information sources, extract insights from unstructured data and increase productivity by 10x. Jiir Awdir Co-Founder/CEO holds a master degree from the University St. Gallen and has worked for Swisscom, Roche and Baloise in the past. Ayoub Chouak Co-Founder/CTO holds a double degree master in CS majoring in cloud computing and cyber security from Aalto University and the Technical University of Denmark, he has previously worked for Taurus, Niantic, CERN and Huawei. Chihiro Co-Founder/Lead AI holds a master degree in mathematics from ETH. He is leading their AI development and has previously worked for Japanese tech firms.
The Venture Kick Fund will contribute to the initial development of the product as well as customer acquisition.
INCAPTEK: Next-generation smart drug-eluting coatings for medical devices
Infections associated with medical devices are a health burden worldwide. They increase patients' mortality risk and financial burden on the healthcare system. These infections can be reduced by a wider adoption of antimicrobial coatings. However, due to the fast drug release, their efficacy is limited, calling for action.
INCAPTEK found a solution. The start-up was founded by Olga Fontanellaz (CEO) and two leading scientists, Prof Gleb Sukhorukov (CSO), an inventor of layer-by-layer microencapsulation, and Yury Moshkin, PhD (CTO). At the core of their innovation are smart microcapsules with a controlled drug-release function. When attached to the surface of medical devices, these microcapsules produce smart coatings that ensure prolonged and sequential release of multiple antimicrobial drugs for efficient protection from infections. INCAPTEK first targets the market of surgical meshes and sutures, valued at US$657 M in 2024, representing an attractive niche.
The team plans to use the Venture Kick funds to conduct in-depth market research in this field. incaptek.com
PitchMe: smart wind energy as a service to help farmers, SMEs, and local authorities achieve energetic independence.
Wind power offers the lowest cost of electricity but wind turbines suffer from low social acceptance and the scarcity of exploitable land. PitchMe develops a 30-metre tall vertical-axis wind turbine with orientable wings and 100kW rated power. These turbines are quiet in operation, fauna-friendly, and require only a third of the space compared to traditional turbines.
PitchMe is an EPFL spin-off project that launched in October 2023 with a BRIDGE PoC grant, led by Sebastien Le Fouest (CEO) and Daniel Fernex (CTO). Our unique selling proposition is an under-patenting control software that orients the turbine wings in real time to optimize performance and extend the turbine's lifetime in all wind conditions. This control software enables a competitive cost of electricity (~6.5cts/kWh) and a wind turbine payback time of 6.5 years. There is a 12.2 GW yearly demand for new commercial-scale power applications, opening a CHF 17.2 B market size.
The Venture Kick funds will help accelerate our technical development at an industrial scale with wind tunnel testing and improve our visibility and traction.
Scanvio Medical: Democratize expert ultrasound
Endometriosis affects 10% of all women, and it takes an average of 8–12 years to get a diagnosis. The medical condition can cause heavy pain, excessive bleeding, and infertility, and the diagnosis typically requires an invasive laparoscopic surgery.
Scanvio uses AI to empower every gynecologist to diagnose endometriosis during a standard ultrasound examination. The company’s machine learning solution detects and highlights telltale signs of endometriosis in a noisy ultrasound video, and targets the USD 1.6 B AI in the ultrasound market, a subset of the USD 8.5B medical ultrasound equipment market.
CTO Dr. Fabian Laumer developed intelligent algorithms for ultrasound interpretation during his ETH Ph.D. research and is now taking advantage of the decades of OB/GYN experience amassed by CMO Prof. Michael Bajka, M.D. Scanvio’s founding team also includes CEO and serial entrepreneur Dr. Stefan Tuchschmid, Julian Metzler, M.D., Gabriel Fringeli, and Prof.Dr. Joachim Buhmann.
Thanks to the Venture Kick prize money, Scanvio will be able to build a first product demonstrator and showcase the concept at the annual meeting of the Swiss Society for Gynecology and Obstetrics at the end of June. scanvio.com
Visienco: Bringing automated, gentle organoid sorting to your lab
A newly developed drug today creates costs of USD 1.5 B. To reduce this cost, 3D cell culture models have been established, more relevant in their physiological response than easier structures. Such 3D cell models often come in bulk and mixed quality, thus requiring sorting before being used for drug screening. Visienco offers a sorting device, the Orgadroid, that automates this labor-intensive, tiring task.
The company Visienco, a CSEM spin-off, is currently supported by the CSEMs Accelerator program. The founders Lucie Jandet and Jonas Goldowsky are long-term employees of CSEM and have been working on organoid sorting technologies since 2021. In cooperation with their partners, they developed the Orgadroid to simplify the inspection, sorting, and individualization of large 3D cell models, while keeping those precious samples safe and sound. AI models are used to automatically assess the quality of each organoid based on the brightfield microscope images acquired by the Orgadroid.
With the support of Venture Kick, they will now expand their network of pilot users, scientific advisors, and technology providers to bring the Orgadroid to market. visienco.ch