The venture leader and venture kicker L.E.S.S. wins »venture» 2014!

Yann Tissot and Simon Rivier might be the ones making the dream of flexible smartphones reality thanks to their technology providing ultra-thin and ultra-bright lighting sensors, a serious alternative to today’s LEDs. The best business plans were announced at the final Award Ceremony, for a total competition prize of over CHF 150,000. The innovative strength and the entrepreneurial spirit of Switzerland have never been so strong, as shown in the record numbers of participants: 239 teams submitted their business ideas in the first phase, followed by 141 teams in the second phase. The participating companies came primarily from the ICT and Life Sciences industries, but  »venture» also had the chance to meet teams representing various sectors.

The final decision and prize award took place during the second »venture» Prize Awards Ceremony at ETH the 7th of May 2014. Following presentations to potential investors as part of the »venture» Investor Day, each of the top 5 teams presented their business plans to the »venture» Advisory Board, composed of leading actors of the Swiss economy. The awards were handed over during a grand ceremony, moderated by the popular host Annina Frey. As part of the ceremony, Mr. Joseph Jimenez, Chief Executive Officer of Novartis, shared his perspective on the importance of innovation in today’s market and how to successfully achieve it.

The top five teams:

1. Place

L.E.S.S. (Electronics/Hardware – EPFL Lausanne)

Designing flexible, low-power consumption and colorful displays comes within reach thanks to the innovative lighting technology developed by L.E.S.S. – a ultrathin, -bright, and -uniform lighting systems. www.less-optics.com

2. Place

SamanTree Technologies (Medtech – EPFL Lausanne)

SamanTree’s surgical micro-scopes, with the largest field of view on the planet, enable digital in vivo histology for complete, surgical tumor removal. www.samantree.com

3. Place

Gimball (Electronics/Hardware – EPFL Lausanne)

Gimball is a game-changing flying robot, which can be flown in-doors and in complex environments: it can stay stable after collisions with obstacles and can thus go where other robots can’t. Also considering that it is safe to fly close to humans, it will enable countless new applications. www.gimball.co

4. Place

Polyneuron Pharmaceuticals (Pharma/Biotech – University Basel)

Polyneuron Pharmaceuticals has developed a novel drug class for the treatment of autoimmune disorders. Their “anti-body-catch” technology has the potential to selectively “catch” disease causing anti-bodies and furthermore suppress their production in patients with autoimmune diseases.

5. Place

rqmicro (Food/Agriculture – ETH Zurich)

Rqmicro provides a novel system for the rapid detection of water- and food-borne pathogens, which yields results in a significantly shorter time with higher accuracy and lower detection limits. www.rqmicro.ch

Other finalists, in alphabetical order:

Bright Sensors (Energy – EPFL Lausanne)

Bright Sensors’s natural gas quality sensor optimizes natural gas appliances and biogas production by sampling and measuring the quality of the gas in the pipeline, leading to increased efficiency of gas appliances. www.bright-sensors.com

Lunaphore (Medtech – EPFL Lausanne)

Lunaphore builds next-generation tumor analysis and classification platforms that in just five minutes, reduce the number of required reagents by 50%, and remove ambiguities in data by providing 90% higher diagnostic accuracy. www.lunaphore.ch

Qloudlab (Medtech – EPFL Lausanne)

Qloudlab is the inventor and patent holder of the world’s first touchscreen-based bio-sensor that will turn your smart-phone touchscreen into a medical device for multiple blood diagnostics testing. www.qloudlab.com

SwissLeg (Medtech – USI Lugano)

SwissLeg is an innovative prosthetic technology that offers affordable, high-quality, and high-mobility artificial legs, which enable amputees in the developing world to walk and run at a minimal cost. www.swissleg.com

Versantis (Pharma/Biotech – ETH Zurich)

Versantis has developed an innovative peritoneal dialysis strategy based on microvesicles that can clear toxic compounds from the organism with unprecedented efficacy, and therefore save patients from metabolite intoxications and drug overdoses. www.versantis.ch