Startups developing small molecules drugs to detoxify toxic metals, rebuilding coral reefs, offering a sustainable digital banking solution, and improving our digital wellbeing each win CHF 10,000
10.05.2022
MetaLead, rrreefs, Truly, and Zario win Venture Kick's first stage of entrepreneurial and financial support. Their projects developed short peptides that tightly bind and detoxify toxic metals; empower brands and people to protect marine biodiversity, allow coral reefs to recover; enable users to track, analyze and understand the carbon footprint based on one's financial transactions; and improve how we use our phones and live our lives.
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 MetaLead: Michal Shoshan
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 rrreefs: CEO and Head of Science and Development Dr. Ulrike Pfreundt
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 Truly from left to right: CBDO Bora Guden, CEO Moritz von Contzen, and CTO/COO Alec Hans
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 Zario: CMO Killian Fjellbakk and CEO Ondrej Zak
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MetaLead: short peptides to detoxify toxic metals
Lead (Pb) poisoning directly kills about 1 million people globally every year. Furthermore, 16% of children in the USA and every third child globally are poisoned by Pb, having elevated blood lead levels that are defined as dangerous. Pb is thus the most toxic metal to humans. Two drugs are used in the clinic, yet they suffer from low efficacy and high toxicity. Hence better medications that can safely treat children and adults are highly advantageous.
Michal Shoshan is currently a group leader at the Department of Chemistry of the University of Zurich. She holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a post-doc from ETH Zurich. Her group developed short peptides that tightly bind and detoxify toxic metals. Their lead compound was tested on mice and found to be significantly more potent than the two SOCs to treat Pb poisoning, and it also showed marginal toxicity. They filed two patent applications, and they intend to test additional compounds in mice and conduct thorough preclinical studies. The product is a drug that replaces the current non-effective drugs against metal poisoning. Since their compound is safer and more potent, people who are currently not allowed to be treated, mainly children, pregnant women, and with relatively low metal levels, will receive their medication. Hospitals and clinicians will give the drug upon prescription.
They plan to use the Venture Kick funds to optimize the synthesis of the lead compounds to be as cost-effective as possible, test two additional compounds in mice as part of the preclinical trials and fund the patent national phase.
rrreefs: rebuilding coral reefs
We have lost half of our coral reefs; and 90 percent are expected to die by 2050. Dead reefs lose much of their 3D structure - essential for thriving marine life. On one side, nation-states, tourism, and fish-dependent industries depend on healthy reefs: as coastal protection barriers, for the provision of seafood, and for income. On the other side, a dying ocean affects us all; consumers around the world become more aware of biodiversity loss and reward companies that invest in a healthy planet, but businesses have little access to attractive investments into biodiversity today.
ETH Spin-Off rrreefs addresses both pains. The all-female founders team around CEO Dr. Ulrike Pfreundt, previously PostDoc in Marine Science at ETH Zürich, shares the love of the ocean and the determination to help coral reefs survive. With Creative Director Marie Griesmar, Head of Field Operations Hanna Kuhfuss, and COO Josephine Graf, rrreefs empowers brands and people to protect marine biodiversity. First, they rebuild coral reefs with their scientifically optimized reef system. Second, they quantify the biodiversity developing in their reefs. Third, that biodiversity is tokenized as biodiversity credits and offered to everyone who wants to give back to the ocean through an easy-access web platform. For insights into the data of their reefs, ready-to-use marketing toolkits, and certification for biodiversity investment, rrreefs offers monthly or yearly subscriptions. They have built a crowdfunded 15 m3 prototype reef in Colombia, and showed increased fish diversity, rivaling the natural reef, after only 3 months.
Truly: digital banking for a sustainable change
Zario: Digital wellbeing, one challenge at a time
Lead (Pb) poisoning directly kills about 1 million people globally every year. Furthermore, 16% of children in the USA and every third child globally are poisoned by Pb, having elevated blood lead levels that are defined as dangerous. Pb is thus the most toxic metal to humans. Two drugs are used in the clinic, yet they suffer from low efficacy and high toxicity. Hence better medications that can safely treat children and adults are highly advantageous.
Michal Shoshan is currently a group leader at the Department of Chemistry of the University of Zurich. She holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a post-doc from ETH Zurich. Her group developed short peptides that tightly bind and detoxify toxic metals. Their lead compound was tested on mice and found to be significantly more potent than the two SOCs to treat Pb poisoning, and it also showed marginal toxicity. They filed two patent applications, and they intend to test additional compounds in mice and conduct thorough preclinical studies. The product is a drug that replaces the current non-effective drugs against metal poisoning. Since their compound is safer and more potent, people who are currently not allowed to be treated, mainly children, pregnant women, and with relatively low metal levels, will receive their medication. Hospitals and clinicians will give the drug upon prescription.
They plan to use the Venture Kick funds to optimize the synthesis of the lead compounds to be as cost-effective as possible, test two additional compounds in mice as part of the preclinical trials and fund the patent national phase.
rrreefs: rebuilding coral reefs
We have lost half of our coral reefs; and 90 percent are expected to die by 2050. Dead reefs lose much of their 3D structure - essential for thriving marine life. On one side, nation-states, tourism, and fish-dependent industries depend on healthy reefs: as coastal protection barriers, for the provision of seafood, and for income. On the other side, a dying ocean affects us all; consumers around the world become more aware of biodiversity loss and reward companies that invest in a healthy planet, but businesses have little access to attractive investments into biodiversity today.
ETH Spin-Off rrreefs addresses both pains. The all-female founders team around CEO Dr. Ulrike Pfreundt, previously PostDoc in Marine Science at ETH Zürich, shares the love of the ocean and the determination to help coral reefs survive. With Creative Director Marie Griesmar, Head of Field Operations Hanna Kuhfuss, and COO Josephine Graf, rrreefs empowers brands and people to protect marine biodiversity. First, they rebuild coral reefs with their scientifically optimized reef system. Second, they quantify the biodiversity developing in their reefs. Third, that biodiversity is tokenized as biodiversity credits and offered to everyone who wants to give back to the ocean through an easy-access web platform. For insights into the data of their reefs, ready-to-use marketing toolkits, and certification for biodiversity investment, rrreefs offers monthly or yearly subscriptions. They have built a crowdfunded 15 m3 prototype reef in Colombia, and showed increased fish diversity, rivaling the natural reef, after only 3 months.
The Venture Kick funds will be used to launch a new website with an easy option to buy biodiversity credits, and a marketing campaign to acquire first customers. rrreefs.com
According to a Harvard study, 65% of consumers want to buy purpose-driven brands that advocate sustainability, yet only about 26% actually do so. The impact of our lifestyles is too unclear and hard to grasp, making it extremely frustrating to solve one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century.
With Truly, you can track, analyse and understand your carbon footprint as part of a one-stop sustainability solution. Truly empowers people to make more sustainable choices in their everyday life through a combination of top-down lifestyle analysis and bottom-up analysis at the transaction level - using a new green bank account. The team originated from the University of St. Gallen and is composed of CEO Moritz von Contzen, CTO/COO Alec Hans, and CBDO Bora Guden. With Truly, digital banking is brought together with the tracking, reducing and offsetting of emissions, and supplemented with gamification and social features for the first time.
They plan to allocate the Venture Kick funds to product development and comprehensive marketing campaigns. trulyapp.ch
Zario: Digital wellbeing, one challenge at a time
Up to 70% of phone users feel they're spending too much time on the phone and 30% actively take steps to reduce screen time. And at least 430 million phone users self-identify as phone addicted and want to change their phone behavior. Zario is a digital wellbeing app that helps people reduce unwanted screentime and replace it with meaningful activities. It combines psychology and gamification and uses daily micro-challenges to help users change their habits in a fun and easy way, while leveraging AI to personalise the journey.
The team consists of CEO Ondrej Zak, CMO & CXO Killian Fjellbakk, an alumnus of Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne, CTO Bartosz Kukaczewski, and Chief Habits Officer Thomas Walker who is a student at the University of Zurich. Zario provides users with daily challenges that tackle the problem on two fronts:
Reduce: scientifically-backed methods to reduce unwanted habits and to make phones less addictive and
Replace: actionable alternatives that address the same needs social media does: promote human connections, and encourage novel and memorable activities.
The Zario team estimates the TAM to be 9 billion USD.
The team was recently featured on the famous digital product platform; Product Hunt, where they became the No.1 product of the day.
The Venture Kick funds will be used to finance further development of the app and to grow the reach of the app on all social media platforms using a mixed strategy of organic and inorganic marketing. meetzario.com