500 participants, CHF 75k prize money and some surprises

The Startup Champions Seed Night is one of the key events in the startup scene in Western Switzerland. The event is organised by EPFL Alumni, the EPFL Vice Presidency for Innovation and Venturelab. The 12th edition attracted more than 500 people. Most of them attended the event at the Rolex Forum, and there were also numerous viewers of the live stream.

20 start-ups pitched in four groups. From cleantech to medtech, fintech, ICT or watchmaking, the audience discovered the best of the early stage startups from EPFL and beyond. The full list can be found on the EPFL Alumni website. The startups competed in four groups. The audience chose one finalist from each group. In one group, two startups received an equal number of votes, so that a total of 5 finalists were selected:

• 2D Membranes – develops a carbon capture solution for the industrial sector based on graphene membranes.
• Cultivated Biosciences - develops an ingredient from GMO-free yeast, which offers the creaminess needed for plant-based dairy to appeal to flexitarian consumers.
• Neology - transforms ammonia into hydrogen for use in fuel cells to power a cleaner, greener future.
• Openversum - provides safe and clean water to those who need it most through micro-franchising of Swiss technology.
• Voltiris - solar modules allow a double use of agricultural land by producing electricity without reducing the yield of greenhouse crops placed underneath the modules.

The jury selected Voltiris as winner. The company convinced the jury with its market size, the urgency of the problem and the business model, which does not require farmers to invest in hardware through upfront payments.

Healthcare projects awarded by Isabelle Musy

Launched eight years ago, the Isabelle Musy Award is designed to award and support female entrepreneurs in the Swiss Romande and Swiss Italian regions. The aim is to encourage the creation of technology companies with societal impact by women.

The prize was presented by the donor. This year she honoured two female scientists with entrepreneurial projects. The Isabelle Musy Award, endowed with 50,000 Swiss francs, went to Angela Madurga Alonso, a PhD student in immunology at EPFL. Her goal is to make cardiac fibrosis curable by immunotherapy. She relies on a specific type of immune cell - natural killer (NK) cells - that have been equipped with chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) in order to attack aberrant cardiac cells. In 2024, she plans to found a start-up together with Mathieu Girardin. You can read more about the winner and her project in an article on the EPFL website.

In addition to this prize, Isabelle Musy also awarded another future entrepreneur. Shanaz Diessler received CHF25k. She is developing a novel sleep monitoring technology at the University of Lausanne. Currently, sleep labs are the gold standard in this field. But being in a sleep lab can disrupt sleep and the measurements only take place during one night. Diessler is developing a mattress topper that will allow measurements to be taken in the patient's bed as well.

In addition to the entrepreneurs of tomorrow, Michael Friedrich, a successful serial entpreneur, was also on stage and spoke candidly about his story and challenges. For example, he mentioned how he almost ran out of money twice with his latest start-up, the medtech company Distalmotion. The talk was very well received by the audience and led to numerous questions.

EPFL Alumni has published the video of the event on Youtube. 

(Stefan Kyora)
Picture: EPFL