Urban Drones, Concrete Sensors, Plant-Proteins, and AI Grading Software Win Venture Kick Support

Dronistics: fast, convenient and safe drone delivery

The last mile of logistics is complicated and expensive: over 285 million packages are sent for same-day delivery in Europe and the U.S. every year. That's a $1.3 billion market that may grow to 2.4 billion packages and $22 billion over the next decade. Dronistics has developed a safe, autonomous drone that can fly to a customer's feet at the touch of a button. The EPFL spin-off's safety cage, developed by co-founder Przemyslaw Kornatowski, during four years of research at the laboratory of intelligent systems with co-founder Dario Floreano, means it'll be able to operate where other drones with exposed rotors or wings cannot. The startup, which has already won its first Swiss customer, plans to raise 1.5 million euros to hire staff and execute proofs-of-concept with three further potential clients.

venturekick.ch/dronistics

Durability: corrosion sensor for safer concrete structures

The sudden, lethal collapse of the 51-year-old Morandi bridge in Genoa underlines the need for better ways to check and measure the structural strength of reinforced concrete. Corrosion accounts for 90 percent of the degradation of infrastructure such as bridges and tunnels. Structural engineer Yurena Seguì Femenias developed smart sensors to monitor corrosion inside reinforced concrete during her PhD at ETH Zurich’s Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering. The startup's continuous sensors may be vital to detecting when concrete buildings need to be repaired, while also reducing the unnecessary costs of premature work.
venturekick.ch/durability

 

Planted Foods: plant proteins for meatless consumers

Sixty billion chickens are grown and killed annually. Planted makes animal-free 'meat', using plants instead of chicken. Lukas Böni, Pascal Bieri and Eric Stirnemann, food scientists from ETH Zurich and the University of St. Gallen, aim to offer consumers a sustainable and cruelty-free alternative to meat, and diversify consumer choices from gluten- and soy-based foods. The team's proprietary extrusion process converts protein and fibers from yellow split peas into a structure that mimics chicken. The ETH spin-off already sells its produce to restaurants ranging from a casual Vietnamese banh mi eatery in Zurich to a 15-Gault-Millau-point restaurant in Lucerne. The team plans its own production facility, and to expand its product range to 'beef' and 'fish'.
venturekick.ch/planted

 

SYLVA: automating teachers' tedious tasks

University teachers spend an average of 400 hours grading students' assignments and exams every year. SYLVA, a project by University of Zurich researchers Jessica Sudo, Maik Meusel and Karl Schmedders, is building software to automate all the tedious processes in education, and give educators more time to teach. The startup has partnered with Wolfram Research, which powers the computational engine behind Siri and Alexa's answering-intelligence, and has pilots and clients with universities in the U.S., Spain and Switzerland.
venturekick.ch/sylva