Startups developing disruptive photonics modules, state-of-the-art inspection drones, real-time data of the CO2 content, an AI art app, and optical sensors for bioprocess monitoring each win CHF 10,000
29.11.2022
Cassio-P, Elythor, Emissium, Generai, and Maracells win Venture Kick's first stage of financial and entrepreneurial support. Their projects design and assemble photonic modules to enable systems employed in industrial, medical, and scientific applications, with core functionalities; focus on developing solutions for inspecting and monitoring linear infrastructure; track how clean electricity is for power companies so they can comply with regulations and systematically decarbonize the grid; create a very cheap and fast method to get high-quality artwork or even videos that were generated entirely from a text prompt; and help users reduce the time it takes to monitor and analyze cell cultures.
 |
 |
 Cassio-P's Dr. Antoine Delgoffe (CTO)
|
|
 Elythor's founder Charalampos (Harry) Vourtsis and co-founder Nathan Samuel Muller
|
|
 Emissium's Alessio Santecchia (CTO) and Luise Middelhauve (CEO)
|
|
 Generai's co-founders, Jan Schnyder, Nicolas Muntwyler, Konstantin Wohlwend, and Kyrill Hux
|
|
 Maracells' Dr. Vitalijs Zubkovs
|
|
Cassio-P: Disruptive photonics modules
Cassio-P s envisioned as an OEM, designing and assembling femtosecond laser modules to enable systems employed in laser manufacturing, medical imaging, and other scientific applications. The founder Dr. Antoine Delgoffe, was hired in April 2021 as a post-doc at EPFL Microcity Galatea Lab, and is now involved in venturing out the Cassio-P spin-off, thanks to the support of Innosuisse/SNF Bridge Proof-of-Concept and EPFL’s start-up innovation programs. The Galatea Lab developed a disruptive approach to micro-optical assembly, with which they can make very compact (footprint of a hard drive), lightweight (< 1kg), and maintenance-free complete femtosecond laser sources. The first planned product is ideally suited for reliable integration in other laser systems and multi-photon microscopy used in biomedical applications. There is a growing demand, estimated at >100 units/year, representing a potential for more than CHF 3 million in annual revenue, based on CHF 30,000 per unit, a price potential customers are ready to pay today, based on interviews.
The first financial Venture Kick will help to cover the expenses of test parts and provide a small budget for marketing purposes, in particular to attend trade shows such, as Photonics West in San Francisco and Laser World of Photonics in Munich.
Elythor: State-of-the-art inspection drones
Drones for linear infrastructure inspection and monitoring are required to fly in the targeted construct's proximity at low speeds while withstanding adverse weather conditions such as high wind currents or gusts. At the same time, they must retain their ability to fly for long ranges to cover the entire length of the infrastructure without frequent recharging so that they do not compromise critical time missions and increase operational costs. Current drones on the market fail to satisfy these requirements.
Elythor is a spin-off from the EPFL's Laboratory of Intelligent Systems and focuses on developing solutions for inspecting and monitoring linear infrastructure. Elythor was founded by Charalampos (Harry) Vourtsis, Ph.D. in Aerial Robotics at EPFL and EPFLinnovators fellow, and co-founded by Nathan Samuel Muller, M.Sc. in Robotics at EPFL, and Dario Floreano, Professor at EPFL. They are developing a morphing drone that can fly in centimeter proximity to linear infrastructure due to its protective configuration while retaining its ability to fly for long distances to monitor and inspect the entirety of the infrastructure without compromising efficiency and battery power even in adverse weather conditions.
Better efficiency and decreased power consumption mean less interruption of the operation for charging cycles. This translates into faster operations and reduces human intervention in drone deployment. Currently, the target market is the inspection and monitoring industry. The inspection and maintenance world market in 2021 was summed to CHF 42.66 billion and is expected to grow to CHF 72.46 billion in 2029. The infrastructure inspection and maintenance world market is projected to demonstrate a substantial growth rate from CHF 2.09 billion in 2021 to CHF 3.78 billion in 2029.
The Venture Kick funding will allow them to reach critical milestones within the next year that will enable their project to grow further. The grant will be used first for the business plan refinement and market study. elythor.com
Emissium: providing real-time data on the CO2 content of electricity
Today, there is no easy way for power companies to track the quality of distributed electricity because the required data are often confidential, inaccurate, and scattered across multiple companies. Especially in light of the energy transition, tracking electricity becomes an increasingly demanding task as the number of (renewable) resources connected to the grid is rapidly growing.
As a result, system producers and operators are unable to assess the quality of the electricity they manage, thus lacking crucial information as societal expectations change towards greener and more sustainable electricity. Utility providers and their customers lack the information needed to be transparent with their own customers or successfully implement decarbonization projects.
Bringing together actors with shared interests and goals allows Emissium to fulfill the "current market need for providing the real-time CO2 content in the electricity supplied to consumers" (G. Darbellay, Head of Innovation at OIKEN). Emissium tracks how clean electricity is on behalf of power companies so that they can comply with regulations and systematically decarbonize the grid. Emissium's core team is composed of Alessio Santecchia (CTO) and Luise Middelhauve (CEO), who both hold a Ph.D. in energy from EPFL.
Emissium connects key players across the power grid and facilitates cooperation among them while being confidential and secure. Its unique ability to track and forecast carbon emissions allows it to make smart environmental decisions and harness the full potential of renewable energy. The combined global size of the three targeted markets (power generation, smart services, and carbon offsets) amounts to EUR 45 billion (TAM) as of today. Such size is calculated by considering current volumes of electricity generation and carbon emission costs. Very interesting is the influence of the foreseen electrification of heating and mobility sectors, which predicts significant growth in both the power generation (+70%) and smart services sectors (+90%) until 2030. In the same timeframe, the carbon-offset market is projected to achieve EUR 50 billion alone (48% CAGR) motivated by increasing cost of emissions and greater corporate engagement.
The Venture Kick financing will be used to cover the cost related to transforming the UI mock-up, which is currently being built with expert designers, into a marketable frontend. www.emissium.io
Generai: generating art with AI
Commissioning personalized art can be a very expensive and long process. Having quick access to custom high-quality artwork for design purposes, purchase, or inspiration is a real need. Generai's co-founders, Jan Schnyder, Nicolas Muntwyler, Konstantin Wohlwend, and Kyrill Hux, who are all in the ETH's Master's program for computer science, are building machine learning algorithms to generate art with AI based on textual prompts. Users can not only create their own art, but also directly buy it in physical form, whether it be posters, canvas, or other formats.
As the first company in Switzerland to use this technology, the team's vision is to be pioneers in the field of generative art while allowing users to experience the power of cutting-edge research as they profit from a cheap and fast method to get high-quality, personalized artwork.
Generai's technology is based on Diffusion models, a type of generative AI which was introduced just a few months ago. The team created the application from scratch, building its own custom AI models. Their initial customers are people looking for customized decorations for their homes or those that want to commission personalized artwork.
The Venture Kick funds will be used to polish the product and launch initial marketing campaigns. www.generai.art
Maracells: Optical sensors for bioprocess monitoring and automation
Until now, there was no solution for continuous glucose monitoring in small cell culture volumes. Glucose is the main nutrient for most cultures used in the production of biopharmaceuticals.
Maracells develops a technology to address the need for glucose monitoring. The sensor can be integrated into various form factor culture flasks which are already used by R&D laboratories in the industry. Continuous monitoring allows for accelerating cell culture clone development and media optimization processes. Moreover, the sensor can be integrated with automatic cell culture feed systems digitalizing and automating biopharmaceutical discovery. Maracells is also exploring cooperation with established bioreactor manufacturers in order to integrate the technology.
Maracells has an interdisciplinary co-founders team that includes Dr. Sebastian Hersberger (CEO), Dr. Vitalijs Zubkovs (CSO), and Miha Markocic (CTO). Miha and Vitalijs work at CSEM and perform biotech, optics, electronics, and software development for technology demonstration and validation. Sebastian is a seasoned entrepreneur in the biotech industry and is in charge of business strategy and finance for Maracells. The Maracells team member Antoine Dujardin focuses on market research and product requirement validation with future customers and got involved in the spin-off during his eMBA at EPFL. The team aims to spin off from CSEM in the upcoming year.
The Venture Kick funds will go towards financing marketing and partnering activities, conference fees, fundraising efforts, and legal and IP consultation. www.maracells.com
Cassio-P s envisioned as an OEM, designing and assembling femtosecond laser modules to enable systems employed in laser manufacturing, medical imaging, and other scientific applications. The founder Dr. Antoine Delgoffe, was hired in April 2021 as a post-doc at EPFL Microcity Galatea Lab, and is now involved in venturing out the Cassio-P spin-off, thanks to the support of Innosuisse/SNF Bridge Proof-of-Concept and EPFL’s start-up innovation programs. The Galatea Lab developed a disruptive approach to micro-optical assembly, with which they can make very compact (footprint of a hard drive), lightweight (< 1kg), and maintenance-free complete femtosecond laser sources. The first planned product is ideally suited for reliable integration in other laser systems and multi-photon microscopy used in biomedical applications. There is a growing demand, estimated at >100 units/year, representing a potential for more than CHF 3 million in annual revenue, based on CHF 30,000 per unit, a price potential customers are ready to pay today, based on interviews.
The first financial Venture Kick will help to cover the expenses of test parts and provide a small budget for marketing purposes, in particular to attend trade shows such, as Photonics West in San Francisco and Laser World of Photonics in Munich.
Elythor: State-of-the-art inspection drones
Drones for linear infrastructure inspection and monitoring are required to fly in the targeted construct's proximity at low speeds while withstanding adverse weather conditions such as high wind currents or gusts. At the same time, they must retain their ability to fly for long ranges to cover the entire length of the infrastructure without frequent recharging so that they do not compromise critical time missions and increase operational costs. Current drones on the market fail to satisfy these requirements.
Elythor is a spin-off from the EPFL's Laboratory of Intelligent Systems and focuses on developing solutions for inspecting and monitoring linear infrastructure. Elythor was founded by Charalampos (Harry) Vourtsis, Ph.D. in Aerial Robotics at EPFL and EPFLinnovators fellow, and co-founded by Nathan Samuel Muller, M.Sc. in Robotics at EPFL, and Dario Floreano, Professor at EPFL. They are developing a morphing drone that can fly in centimeter proximity to linear infrastructure due to its protective configuration while retaining its ability to fly for long distances to monitor and inspect the entirety of the infrastructure without compromising efficiency and battery power even in adverse weather conditions.
Better efficiency and decreased power consumption mean less interruption of the operation for charging cycles. This translates into faster operations and reduces human intervention in drone deployment. Currently, the target market is the inspection and monitoring industry. The inspection and maintenance world market in 2021 was summed to CHF 42.66 billion and is expected to grow to CHF 72.46 billion in 2029. The infrastructure inspection and maintenance world market is projected to demonstrate a substantial growth rate from CHF 2.09 billion in 2021 to CHF 3.78 billion in 2029.
The Venture Kick funding will allow them to reach critical milestones within the next year that will enable their project to grow further. The grant will be used first for the business plan refinement and market study. elythor.com
Emissium: providing real-time data on the CO2 content of electricity
Today, there is no easy way for power companies to track the quality of distributed electricity because the required data are often confidential, inaccurate, and scattered across multiple companies. Especially in light of the energy transition, tracking electricity becomes an increasingly demanding task as the number of (renewable) resources connected to the grid is rapidly growing.
As a result, system producers and operators are unable to assess the quality of the electricity they manage, thus lacking crucial information as societal expectations change towards greener and more sustainable electricity. Utility providers and their customers lack the information needed to be transparent with their own customers or successfully implement decarbonization projects.
Bringing together actors with shared interests and goals allows Emissium to fulfill the "current market need for providing the real-time CO2 content in the electricity supplied to consumers" (G. Darbellay, Head of Innovation at OIKEN). Emissium tracks how clean electricity is on behalf of power companies so that they can comply with regulations and systematically decarbonize the grid. Emissium's core team is composed of Alessio Santecchia (CTO) and Luise Middelhauve (CEO), who both hold a Ph.D. in energy from EPFL.
Emissium connects key players across the power grid and facilitates cooperation among them while being confidential and secure. Its unique ability to track and forecast carbon emissions allows it to make smart environmental decisions and harness the full potential of renewable energy. The combined global size of the three targeted markets (power generation, smart services, and carbon offsets) amounts to EUR 45 billion (TAM) as of today. Such size is calculated by considering current volumes of electricity generation and carbon emission costs. Very interesting is the influence of the foreseen electrification of heating and mobility sectors, which predicts significant growth in both the power generation (+70%) and smart services sectors (+90%) until 2030. In the same timeframe, the carbon-offset market is projected to achieve EUR 50 billion alone (48% CAGR) motivated by increasing cost of emissions and greater corporate engagement.
The Venture Kick financing will be used to cover the cost related to transforming the UI mock-up, which is currently being built with expert designers, into a marketable frontend. www.emissium.io
Generai: generating art with AI
Commissioning personalized art can be a very expensive and long process. Having quick access to custom high-quality artwork for design purposes, purchase, or inspiration is a real need. Generai's co-founders, Jan Schnyder, Nicolas Muntwyler, Konstantin Wohlwend, and Kyrill Hux, who are all in the ETH's Master's program for computer science, are building machine learning algorithms to generate art with AI based on textual prompts. Users can not only create their own art, but also directly buy it in physical form, whether it be posters, canvas, or other formats.
As the first company in Switzerland to use this technology, the team's vision is to be pioneers in the field of generative art while allowing users to experience the power of cutting-edge research as they profit from a cheap and fast method to get high-quality, personalized artwork.
Generai's technology is based on Diffusion models, a type of generative AI which was introduced just a few months ago. The team created the application from scratch, building its own custom AI models. Their initial customers are people looking for customized decorations for their homes or those that want to commission personalized artwork.
The Venture Kick funds will be used to polish the product and launch initial marketing campaigns. www.generai.art
Maracells: Optical sensors for bioprocess monitoring and automation
Until now, there was no solution for continuous glucose monitoring in small cell culture volumes. Glucose is the main nutrient for most cultures used in the production of biopharmaceuticals.
Maracells develops a technology to address the need for glucose monitoring. The sensor can be integrated into various form factor culture flasks which are already used by R&D laboratories in the industry. Continuous monitoring allows for accelerating cell culture clone development and media optimization processes. Moreover, the sensor can be integrated with automatic cell culture feed systems digitalizing and automating biopharmaceutical discovery. Maracells is also exploring cooperation with established bioreactor manufacturers in order to integrate the technology.
Maracells has an interdisciplinary co-founders team that includes Dr. Sebastian Hersberger (CEO), Dr. Vitalijs Zubkovs (CSO), and Miha Markocic (CTO). Miha and Vitalijs work at CSEM and perform biotech, optics, electronics, and software development for technology demonstration and validation. Sebastian is a seasoned entrepreneur in the biotech industry and is in charge of business strategy and finance for Maracells. The Maracells team member Antoine Dujardin focuses on market research and product requirement validation with future customers and got involved in the spin-off during his eMBA at EPFL. The team aims to spin off from CSEM in the upcoming year.
The Venture Kick funds will go towards financing marketing and partnering activities, conference fees, fundraising efforts, and legal and IP consultation. www.maracells.com