We are very excited to announce 2020’s most promising young tech start-up teams, who’ll be promoting their innovative ideas at the EIT Jumpstarter Grand Final event and have a chance to win a money prize.
After great consideration, based on the business plans the teams created, each category, health, raw materials, agri-food, energy, manufacturing and urban mobility revealed their best teams.
Congratulations to the finalists!
RawMaterials
Calcination of minerals is responsible for approximately 10% of all human carbon emissions worldwide.
Flameless developed a system that can calcinate minerals without burning fossil fuels, using a heat transfer fluid that could be heated using concentrated solar power plants, allowing for less carbon emissions (50% less) and increased resource efficiency in mineral and metallurgical processes.
By combining mineral separation methodologies, CMS contributes to reduce the mining operating costs by 15%. CMS offers an innovative equipment based on the combination of gravity and magnetic separation, the Magnetic-Spiral Concentrator.
They also offer Spiral Concentrators with more competitive costs compared to external competence. This equipment is an addition to the Magnetic-Spiral Concentrator.
AiSortMaster developed an inexpensive machine that sorts Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (TENORM) according to their radioactivity. Based on the developed technology, AiSortMaster will provide a sorting service for mining companies, that will help reduce mine waste volumes by up to 90%.
They assume that the service will become a long term solution for uranium legacy sites, allowing the efficient use of secondary resources.
ResourcesX explores presently considered unconventional resources relevant for our development. ResourcesX wants to reprocess phosphogypsum waste (roughly 250 million tons are produced annually) to natural gypsum and recover rare earth elements while doing so.
Both rare earths and natural gypsum are considered critical materials by the EU.
ZincO is developing a battery that stores surplus-energy of rooftop photovoltaic systems, turning thousands of households from electricity consumers to producers.
Using purified zinc and oxygen as its main chemical reactants, a ZincO battery improves both affordability and ecological footprint. The solution allows the product costs to be lower by 75% than the ones based on lithium-ion.
The materials provide non-toxic, non-inflammable characteristics, making the operation harmless for people and nature.
ReCatalyst is Revolutionizing the way we make hydrogen fuel cell Catalysts. ReCatalyst produces next-generation patented platinum-alloy nano-catalysts that are 2-3 times more efficient than existing ones, exhibit enhanced stability and enable a 50% reduction in required platinum per hydrogen fuel cell system and therefore its recent cost. Recently, the team has reached TRL 6, making their products ready for commercial use and, thus, market entry.
Health
Fetalix provides the first regenerative fetal-inspired solution to treat low back pain through a minimally-invasive application.
This injectable and off-the-shelf material provides a new and preventive treatment for intervertebral disc degeneration, eliminating the need for surgical procedures and reoperations, while reducing intervention time by 90% and hospital stays by 70%. The production is simple, safe, affordable, scalable and it promotes circular economy by creating value from animal waste.
HEDDA is a combination of biofeedback-induced video game and a headset that integrates real time biometric data as an extra input into the gameplay. As a result, prompting beneficial states of kid’s body and mind by visually rewarding them in the gameplay.
HEDDA offers an opportunity to use video games to train children’s self-regulation skills and measurably improve their mental wellbeing. HEDDA – let’s make playing video games as beneficial as meditating or playing chess!
Every year, half a million people worldwide suffer some form of spinal cord injury. Neurons in the spinal cord are unable to recover on their own, and current therapies are inefficient. Axodynamic is developing drug release biomaterials to promote neuroregeneration and remodeling of the glial scar, with the goal of halving the hospitalisation length and disability period.
VocDec develops a cry-based non-invasive tool for early screening of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in newborns. The technology of VocDec is innovative and unique through an algorithm that is based on cry-signals of newborns. It will improve and accelerate the current diagnose pathway significantly via early diagnosis. Early diagnosis will accelerate and increase efficiency of the treatment, gradually improving patients’ quality of life and saving the related healthcare costs.
Obrt Žagar is providing solutions in the field of Computer Engineering and Computer Science, consulting, and building information systems for business clients.
They are developing an adaptive medical search algorithm, based on the fact that the motion is coherent for acquired medical 3D MRI or CT data, to reduce the system requirements and boost the speed of the examining data in DICOM (medical image standard) viewers and also reduce the storage requirements.
Semse is developing unique applications for neurofeedback devices, that help learning to release stress consciously, calming ourselves, and being able to focus better. They are working on spreading the positive effects of neurofeedback by providing unique audiovisual neuro-gaming experiences thus bringing BCI devices to a more popular level.
Their mission is to create an Ecosystem that makes meditation available for everybody and part of their everyday life.
Food
Agrodrone operates in soil science. They work with Precision Agriculture technologies and excell in upgrading soil for crop optimisation. In July 2020, they developed a soil microbiology technology granted industrial design patent; And their latest product is Agrochar, a fertiliser customised for professional agriculture covering big areas.
They help farmers reducing costs on synthetic chemicals while delivering harvests with higher yield and quality.
Coffeco has designed and developed a holistic approach to reuse 100% of the coffee waste and produce various high value-added products. They follow good collection strategies and innovative low-energy consumption manufacturing technologies.
Their main products based on circular economy are the isolated antioxidants from the coffee waste, which are used as natural ingredients in the food and cosmetics’ industry replacing chemical-based antioxidants and preservatives.
In response to the growing participation of older people in society and the emerging problem of malnutrition in this age group, Etern+ created a fully nutritious and valuable meal for the elderly.
Etern+ is a family that unites and represents business and science. Their great synergy is the first step towards creating a successful company.
FoodAccept is a sensor-based technology that allows the prediction of bitterness and astringency with precision, “outside the mouth”. FoodAccept is based on the knowledge that these two sensory sensations, which are mainly responsible for consumer rejection, are greatly affected by saliva composition.
FoodAccept offers the possibility of accessing astringency and bitterness in different phases of the production process and specialised for different groups of consumers.
Meterscope is a monitoring tool that ensures food product quality from farm to shelf. It manages data collected from IoT devices, connected with various sensors and existing equipment, in order to digitise and automate safety standard procedures and business operations throughout the food value chain.
By using Meterscope, food companies manage to avoid food losses, ensure product quality, improve traceability and increase transparency.
Humans produce over 400 million tons of plastic each year and more than 8 million tons are dumped in our oceans. Relicta’s solution is a water-soluble packaging, made from fish skin.
Relicta developed two different prototypes: One flexible and one rigid, with the same chemical qualities. The material is water-soluble, but a single jet of water cannot melt it, and it’s also resistant to high humid environments. Its melting time in cold water is around 20 days, but under warm water it melts in a few seconds, allowing consumers to dispose of it, easily, at home.
Manufacturing
ArcLub One is a cryogenic machining system based on lubricated CO2. The system provides innovative and sustainable cooling and lubrication in CNC machining.
ArcLub One is a self-standing system that can be adopted to any existing CNC machine in order to replace the conventional cooling and lubrication technique with emulsions.
CREIX joins some complementary ideas as a marketplace, a terraced house model and complete property management service so that the middle-class can have a house according to their needs. Owners of middle and large plots, investors and people in search of a house, come together.
To reduce costs, they create an optimized modular terraced house that is able to expand.
The market niche is not crowded because of the challenges of having all parties in agreement. CREIX is still able to make it happen, thanks to their partner, Skyrocket.
FabInventors is a spin-off startup from Instituto Superior Técnico devoted to the development and application of highly flexible 3D printing systems for large format applications.
The startup is founded by Nuno Frutuoso, backed with Manuel Sardinha, Marco Leite and António Ribeiro.
Works under three pillars: Research, Sustainability, and Innovation.
LaserStreet’s laser-cutting line offers flexibility through a modular design of prefabricated blocks (e.g. AI-controlled laser-cutting block, quality control block) that enables expansion over time from a cost-effective version to larger designs, while keeping initial investments comparatively low. LaserStreet can further process both metal sheets (attractive to SMEs) and metal coils (attractive to larger producers, >20,000 tons per year).
NCELLUM is a lab-stage startup that develops a bionanomaterial called Nanocellulose from Pine Cones Waste. They are applying a Nanotechnology and a circular economy approach. Such a product will be used by sustainable Food & Beverage manufacturers acting as an eco-friendly coating for both fossil-based plastics & bioplastics packaging.
Noise pollution is a serious problem in densely populated areas and has a significant negative effect on customer satisfaction in hotels.
Tumultum offers a solution with a new generation of active noise cancelling devices. A device mounted on a window or a wall produces a noise counter wave that cancels out external noises. The product is self-adapting and completely personalized to ensure the best possible client experience.
Due to its perfect transparency, it fits to any kind of interior design and can be installed in a way that does not overwhelm room design.
Urban Mobility
Horizer engages in the design, development, manufacture, and sale of solar modules, energy generation and storage systems compatible with any vehicle. Horizer aims to fragmentize and democratize the energy market by providing every person with the means to have clean, mobile energy accessible, shareable and tradeable anywhere. Companies with a vehicle fleet and vehicle owners use Horizer’s solar module and energy app to reduce fuel consumption, lower cost and CO2 emissions by 32%.
EV Loader is a electric vehicle charging station management solution that focuses on open data. Charging Station Owners use Loader app to make the stations available to the public, offer a streamlined reservations and payment system for drivers, and keep records of all transactions. Data related to charging station availability and pricing are stored via EU Commission’s ContextBroker to public nodes, enabling state agencies and grid operators monitor the operation of the stations.
Unmanned Systems Bulgaria develops a cloud-based service that will help non-airmen, such as most drone users, with the complexity of the airspace and allows them to fly safely by delivering real-time air traffic data and easy to understand rules of the air. The digital platform will allow to make and receive airspace requests, have pre-flight briefing and contact authorities for permits. Once the unmanned traffic management solution advances, they will continue with integration of urban air mobility, allowing human transportation.
AIRIO is a mobile station, equipped with electronic sensors. It is placed on public transport vehicles, travels and collects billions of data points on the roads. All data is sent to the cloud, where Artificial Intelligence services and extensive reports are available.
This information can be used by municipalities, public transport companies or the scientific society of the EU.
Atik Nakit solutions enables customers to save both fuel, by 40%, and time costs with dynamic routing in recycling waste collection operations, while controlling all the data in the field from a single screen and keeping the data in digital.
On the citizen side, they will be able to follow the collection times of the municipality as well as get directions to the closest recycling bins via their mobile application.
IzzyBike is a groundbreaking chainless bicycle design with a front-wheel drive. Its unique construction renders it not only more responsive but also makes it cleaner, more comfortable and more reliable than a traditional bike. Moreover, it is compact and can be folded in 1 second. Above all, the experience of riding IzzyBike is truly enjoyable, as attested by all those who tried out the existing prototype.
Innoenergy
The idea of WindWave is the exploitation of the available offshore wind and wave energy for power generation/storage by installing a wind turbine and a wave energy converter in marine environment.
In this case, a horizontal wind turbine and a floating-type wave energy converter were installed on a Hybrid Fixed Platform in order to utilise the available wind and wave energy at sea depths up to 50 meters. Additionally, there was the potential of installing a wave energy storage device to examine its storage capability.
Biomass or other carbon-containing materials can be gasified in an oxygen-limited environment to produce syngas fuel that can replace fossil fuels, such as gasoline or diesel fuel.
The technology is mature and gained momentum in Europe, particularly Scandinavian countries, when fossil fuels were scarce or expensive. Biomass gasification is a sustainable, carbon neutral technology that could replace traditional carbon emitting fossil fuel sources in a number of sectors. GasTrade LLC is developing innovative gasifiers that provide process heat and syngas from biowaste.
GREEN AND CLEAN TECH is focused on the development of waste management systems and the principle of waste-to-fuel.
Their first project is a waste management system for the collection of used edible oils and fats – UCO. Their aim is to improve this area of recycling, as it is still at an extremely low level, and make it permanently sustainable.
DronePlan’s Drone Automation Software helps power distribution companies who want to run regular inspections of power lines by means of drones.
It allows them to save time, optimise the inspection costs and improve safety during the inspection.
PowerPlan is a software as a service platform that automates pre-sales consultation for solar energy businesses. It uses mathematical models and optimisation algorithms to identify the optimum energy system for individual households. Finally, an offer is automatically created that contains the proposed solar energy system together with financial predictions so the house owner understands why a particular system is being proposed.
At present, home automation technologies facilitate remote control through Wi-Fi connections enabling users to control indoor conditions with little effort. Companies claim that a smart thermostat saves up energy up to 15%.
Smarth-Prop proposes a smart thermostat that implements Model Predictive Control (MPC) and A.I. approaches and algorithms reducing final energy building costs by up to 40%.
To join us at the online Grand Final on the 25th of November 2020, register here:
https://registration.eitjumpstarterfinal2020.com
