START Summiteer 2017: Nanoleq wins CHF 20‘000

START Summit, the leading student-run entrepreneurship and technology conference in Europe – was organised for the fifth consecutive year in St. Gallen. The summit brought together over 2000 participants from all over the world including students, investors, startups and like-minded individuals to learn more about today’s mega trends such as Blockchain Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Augmented/Virtual Reality, as well as medtech and life sciences. In addition to the tailored workshops, 1:1 meetings, diverse inspiring speeches, startups had the opportunity to meet aspiring candidates for hire.

Nanoleq takes home START Summiteer prize
One of the highlights of the event was the START Summiteer Award. Every year, the award is bestowed onto be most outstanding startup with an innovative idea or product/service. Out of over 150 submitted applications, six startups were selected among the finalists; IDUN Healthtec, Noonee, Struckd, Nanolq, PapayaPods and Scailyte. Following their pitches, the jury which comprised of Daniel Gutenberg, Siraj Khaliq and Lukasz Gadowski, chose nanoleq as the winner due the level of innovativeness in their product.

Nanoleq is a Zurich based startup providing unbreakable cables and connectors for an extended lifetime. Electrical cables and connectors are fragile and often prone to breakage due to repeated mechanical stress. This problem not only affects private individuals (headphones or cable-chargers), it can cause extreme dangers for industries in the production process, or in the biomedical field where sudden electrical failure can be a critical issue.

In the need to prevent any damages, the startup-up company nanoleq is developing a new cable technology providing higher lifetime and mechanical flexibility based on stretchable electronics. Nanoleq cables compose of different conductive materials such as silver nanowires, carbon nanotubes, and carbon black particles. They are embedded in elastomers and other specific polymers to maximize the cable lifetime.

Support from CTI and ETH
Last year in November, the startup received the "Feasibility Study" grant from the Commission for Technology and Innovation of the Swiss Confederation (CTI). The startup received CHF 110 k which was used to quantify the lifetime of our new cables and connectors.

In December of the same year, nanoleq’s received CHF 150K in the "Pioneer Fellowship" by unanimous decision of the expert commission of ETH Zurich to independently develop and commercialize a highly innovative product. The startup was also granted access to ETH facilities for the next 18 months.

(RAN)