Press Release June 2019
Aalto Startup Center is highlighting artificial intelligence, manufacturing and life science, & health tech from our business generator program, Aalto-based research commercialization cases from the Innovation Services, and ESA BIC Finland. You can find us at ARCTIC15 near the main entrance. You are welcome to check out our showcases from ‘From Ideas To Impact ™’ and services!
Aalto Startup Center
The innovative and unique ecosystem From Ideas To Impact ™ that is Aalto Startup Center runs a Business Generator program for startups in Espoo, Finland. Aalto Startup Center is a hybrid accelerator with roots in the year 1997. A hybrid accelerator offers client startups both business incubation and business acceleration services.
The services include business professionals & business mentors who keep the business generator model running in many different ways (example IPR, finance, funding, go-to-market, sales, team building). The purpose of Aalto Startup Center is to foster entrepreneurship and startups which is part of the strategy of Aalto University. It works with both external startups and new businesses set up as part of Aalto University’s commercial research projects (Innovation Services). This unique path is in practice From Ideas To Impact ™, it’s connecting research and business. Important stakeholders can be part of the beginning of the path to commercialization projects for startups through scaling up. Those projects are a strong link and part of Aalto Startup Center daily life.
Pic. FROM IDEAS TO IMPACT ™
The combined turnover of all Aalto Startup Center startup accelerator programme alumni in 2017 has been calculated at EUR 490 million, the results of a recent study reveal.
Researcher Pertti Kiuru, presented the findings of the 14-year study.
Currently Aalto Startup Center has 40 member clients in the portfolio, 11 of them are involved in the European Space Agency’s Business Incubation. You can find us at Artic15 near to the main entrance.
Aalto Startup Center’s showcases at the booth
Forethink
Forethink is a startup that wants to improve e-commerce by refining the browsing experience of an online store and the discovery experience. They are solving the issue of turning an internet shopper who is just browsing into a paying customer. They do this with their AI-based 1:1 live personalization and turning the store’s catalog into a “Smart” catalog thus converting window-shoppers into new purchasing customers. Forethink is an excellent example of the Finnish government’s effort to encourage a multicultural startup ecosystem, being one of the first startups with “Startup Permit” holder.
VimAI
VimAI enables indoor augmented intelligence by taking advantage of computer vision and machine learning techniques. By using mobile phones to scan the indoor environments and build 3D models, VimAI uses this visual data to recognize objects and understand the location. This all enables high precision indoor localization and navigation.
VimAI prefer the term “augmented intelligence” as augment intelligence plays more of an assistive role, emphasizing the fact that cognitive technology is designed to enhance human intelligence rather than replacing it. Today, VimAI has paying pilot customers and is constantly improving their technology. The three segments of customers that they are targeting are industrial organizations, shopping centers, and real estate management.
VimAI is also a classic example of a startup with the From Ideas To Impact ™ slogan which Aalto Startup Center has as the team was formed via a commercialization research project from Aalto University in 2017. They were recipients of the “Tutli” money and were able to start a company.
Xfold Imaging
Xfold Imaging has the cutting edge nano technology to provide 100-fold signal enhancement for biomedical imaging applications. They do this by using customized nano-structured glass slides based on surface enhanced bio imaging (SEBI) technology. Xfold Imaging’s innovative solution enables the study of cellular structures and bio-molecules (fats, lipids, proteins, etc.) at nano-scale resolutions that were previously not possible. Xfold Imaging solutions have a massive potential for furthering excellence in biomedical research, early diagnosis, drug development, etc. Xfold Imaging is a spin-out of multidisciplinary team from Aalto University and University of Helsinki. The team consists of physicists, biologists, biomedical imaging scientists and business strategists.
Fractuscan
Fractuscan Ltd provides modern solutions for rock wall risk management in mining and construction industries. Fractuscan’s core business is the application of high-resolution digital photogrammetry and UAVs to produce photorealistic 3D models of the sites to improve site safety, optimize the production, and to facilitate daily activities. Fractuscan Ltd is a spin-off from the university research through the TUTL commercialization project and is in business generating revenue since December 2018. Just recently Fractuscan Ltd received the EIT RawMaterials Startup Booster for pilots and new feasibility tests. At Arctic15, Fractuscan crew is looking for funding for marketing and development.
Circular Devices
Circular Devices will be unveiling their new product during Arctic 15. The team at Circular devices have been working since 2014 to provide a solution – the PuzzleCompatible* architecture – that reduces e-waste by providing a licensable modular platform for OEMs to extend the lifetime, customization, and repairability of their devices. This year they have completed the R&D of the first PuzzleCompatible device: the PuzzleIoT “Developers Kit edition”, a modular smart gateway that will allow companies to test and develop their IoT setups on a pre-certified device. Having a pre-certified device means that the clients are steps away from being manufacturing-ready. This all proves beneficial for the circular economy, as their hardware product is sustainable (the modules are customizable, reusable, upgradeable, and repairable) without compromising on quality and profitability. They have received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020.
Aalto Innovation Services manages inventions, intellectual property and technology transfer at Aalto University with a priority to convert research results into societal impact through commercialization. Innovation Services supports researchers in developing inventions and implementing commercialization activities. Innovation Services works together with researchers on IP protection and negotiates and executes license agreements with commercial entities together with Aalto’s legal counsels.
Business Finland’s TUTLI (New Business from Research Ideas) project provides funding which is used to scale up a game-changing invention into innovation and sustainable business. Innovation Service has a high success rate in TUTLI funding and subsequent commercialization. Aalto has so far conducted or is conducting 76 TUTLI projects with the funding of €38 M. These have led to 31 commercialized start-ups or products on the market and raised private seed funding of €70 M. The industries range from solar cell, life science & healthcare to the industrial internet. We have two showcases from Innovation Services at life science and Health Technology area.
Heart4Oxygen aka. HapekasMedical
Novel disposable sensor for thorax surgeons to be utilized in open heart surgery and to be temporarily implanted for a few days of post-operative monitoring of heart’s oxygenation. This real-time monitoring device is designed for the surgeon’s workflow in order to have minimal disturbance during surgery and can be detached easily and without damage to tissue when needed. There is no other solution currently that can give this information both during and after the surgery. Market is a hard to reach niche with total addressable market of €750 M per year globally.
MACULASER
Maculaser – Novel Therapy for Age-related Macular Degeneration. The company’s vision is to enable millions of previously untreatable AMD patients to retain their vision. The project develops novel medical technology for the treatment of common eye-disease, AMD, whose treatment constitutes a major unmet need in the medical field: It is the leading cause of blindness in the developed world, with a total direct healthcare system cost of 200 billion euros annually. Our innovations allow clinicians to perform previously unfeasible laser therapy and help millions of people to retain their vision. Maculaser started as a Business Finland and Aalto University funded commersialisation research project in the summer of 2018. Maculaser is they are currently looking for funding for clinical trials and building the first commercial product. Age-related macular degeneration is a degenerative retinal disease that causes a progressive loss of central vision. There are currently 200 million people living with AMD. At present, there is no effective treatment for dry AMD, which is the most common form of the disease, and no means to prevent the disease from progressing to its quickly blinding wet form
You can meet Panu Kuosmanen, Senior Advisor from Innovation Services and he can tell you about more from Innovation Services’ whole service portfolio from Aalto reseach-based project. These two showcases are at the booth near to the main entrance where you can find Aalto Startup Center’s booth.
ESA Business Incubation Centre Finland was establisehd in 2017 in Finland and this year, we have two showcases at Arctic15. Esa BIC´s cases Solar Foods, Terramonitor, Cloud Assets and also Addcomposites are involded at the New Space Economy Track.
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Business Incubation Centre in Finland was founded in 2017 to support aspiring innovative entrepreneurs and start-ups financially and technically to reveal their full space potential. We are part of the wider European ESA-BIC network. We help you to introduce new technologies to the ESA and its partners or to transfer existing ESA space technologies such as satellite data to terrestrial uses, whether consumer, business or both. We welcome ideas and business models proposing New Space solutions and technologies from positioning and navigation to communications, robotics, nano-satellites, Augmented Reality, autonomous driving and self-flying devices, novel materials and Artificial Intelligence, just to mention a few. As long as at least part of your business model is soundly based on utilizing or improving space solutions, you are welcome to send us your proposal; the sky is NOT the limit! Kimmo Isbjörnssund (Head of ESA BIC Finland) will tell more about ESA BIC Finland´s cases.
Addcomposites – ESA BIC Finland
Addcomposites provides turnkey manufacturing automation solutions to institutes and SME´s through the Hardware-as-a-Service model, enabling high-end manufacturing on an as-needed basis. Addcomposites is a research project spin-off from Aalto University and operates from the European Space Agency Business Incubation Center – Finland. Presently, they are in the seed funding stage and now are looking to close the round by September of this year. In the last few months, Addcomposites has been heavily developing their business strategy and are now gearing up for implementing their go-to-market strategy in Europe this year.
Elfys – ESA BIC Finland
Black silicon absorbing light Elfys has photodetector technology with sensitivity that is the best in the world. Their photodetectors have a nearly ideal photoresponse from 200 nm to 1000 nm with ≥ 96% external quantum efficiency. Elfys also started out as a University research project and they were incorporated in 2017 and now are 6 persons team. They are looking for funding in order to speed up their R&D, hire another sales person and endow their working capital.
You can find us at Artic15 near to a main entrance. See you there!
Contact details: For Arctic15 related questions, please contact Milla Kalliokoski, Project Manager milla.kalliokoski@aalto.fi +358 50 329 8554, Aalto Startup Center, Innovation Ecosystem Services,
A Grid, Otakaari 5A, ESPOO