The Startup Champions Seed Night is an annual startup presentation event that brings together rising entrepreneurs from EPFL and the Canton of Vaud, angel investors, mentors, industry leaders, and scientists. The 11th edition of this electrifying event showcased 19 promising startups in a pitch competition and more than 900 guests joined in-person at EPFL and via livestream to watch the startups present their innovations.
On May 6th, 2022, nineteen startups met onstage for the 11th edition of the Startup Champions Seed Night. These future stars of the Swiss startup ecosystem showcased their innovative solutions during a 90-minute pitch competition: The entrepreneurs had to impress the audience in order to attract as many votes from the public as possible. After four rounds of five pitches, Tristan Vouga (TWIICE), Florent Héroguel (Bloom Biorenewables), Nicolas Vachicouras (Neurosoft Bioelectronics), and Guillaume Perben (Composite Recycling) reached the finals.
The first in person Startup Champion Seed Night since 2019 @EPFL_en . 2021 was an exceptional year for EPFL spinoffs explains Ursula Oesterle.#suchamps pic.twitter.com/l1RI9zutLd
— startupticker (@startuptickerCH) May 5, 2022
In addition to the energizing pitches, two EPFL alumni inspired the audience with their entrepreneurial journey: The first keynote speech of the event came from Jurgi Camblong, co-founder and CEO of Sophia Genetics, a cloud-based Software-as-a-Service platform that enables healthcare institutions to get quick, robust insights from their data. Jurgi shared his advice on how to retain talent and manage growth, saying, “I was so convinced about the way we could change the future. Culture is very important, what you do is who you are.” Jurgi also outlined his perspective on the most important elements of a company: product market fit, sales, and organization.
Raquel Urtasun, the founder and CEO of Waabi, was the second keynote speaker of the evening. She shared the story of her entrepreneurial journey from academia to founding a company that is pioneering the next generation of self-driving technology. “Be bold, aim high,” she urged the audience.
During the keynote speeches, the jury deliberated and chose the winner: Florent Héroguel, co-founder and COO of Bloom Biorenewables, had the best pitch of the Champions Seed Night 2022. Bloom Biorenewables is a Swiss startup turning waste biomass into an alternative for petroleum.
And @Bloom_Biorenew is this year’s winner of the Startup Champions Seed Night! Congratulations on your pitch and fascinating project ?? ?? #VDTech #SUchamps #SwissTech @venturelab_ch @EPFL @epflalumni pic.twitter.com/35jNZQ3XRK
— Innovaud (@Innovaud) May 5, 2022
The Startup Champions Seed Night 2022 was supported by EPFL Alumni, the EPFL Vice Presidency for Innovation, and the generous sponsors Alpian+, EY Switzerland, Innovaud, Kellerhals Carrard, and Swisscom Ventures.
Learn more about the startups that pitched at the Startup Champions Seed Night 2022:
autonomyo Sàrl: Gait Training and Rehabilitation at Home
Autonomyo is a robotic lower limb exoskeleton for daily training and rehabilitation at home with personalized assistance levels. It is stimulating physical and mental training of movements. And it com… Read more
Bearmind SA: Wearable technology to prevent brain injuries in sports
At Bearmind, we protect professional and recreational players from the lifelong traumatism of brain injuries.
Bearmind SA is an EPFL spin-off developing and commercializing services to help clubs con… Read more
Bloom Biorenewables SA: Making biomass a true alternative to petroleum
Bloom offers a sustainable alternative to replace petroleum in current products. With Bloom, customers can match the growing demand for nature-based products as well as make a big step towards meeting… Read more
CodeDepot: Building AI together.
Software is the future of a digital economy. The AI market including software, hardware and services is expected to have grown by 16% in 2021 to reach CHF 328 billion according to IDC (idc.com). Git-b… Read more
Composite Recycling Sàrl: Closing the loop on composite materials
Glass fibre reinforced plastic (GFRP) is becoming a worldwide pollution problem. In 2021, 2.4 million tonnes of GFRP waste was produced with 90% ending up in landfill. Meanwhile, 9 million tonnes fo n… Read more
Green Future Logistics SA: All-in-one logistics SaaS which focuses on sustainability.
Green Future Logistics is building a SaaS to manage transportation.
Since incorporation (May 2021), we made a network of refrigerated B2C deliveries to promote local consumption and created digital t… Read more
KimboCare Sàrl: Enabling transparent access to quality care for all
KimboCare leverages a proprietary, transparent process to allow givers to fund access to quality care for their loved ones, with peace of mind and flexibility. Blockchain will allow us to effectively … Read more
MATIS: MATIS developped a new approach towards forgery detection
The MATIS camera and software are designed for forgery detection. We focus on the art authentication market, with a $85 bilion market turnover worldwide every year, hosting scandalous fake cases. Our … Read more
Mirrakoi SA: 3D models straight from medical images.
3D printing for surgical planning has started to disrupt bone surgery by reducing surgery time, costs and risks. However, it is not yet widely adopted for clinical routine because it is complex, rigid… Read more
Neurosoft Bioelectronics SA: Soft implantable electrodes for the nervous system
Neural implants are medical devices made of electrodes that can record or stimulate the brain, spinal cord or peripheral nerves to monitor or treat patients suffering from neurological disorders. Howe… Read more
Oniri SA: A mobile application to help people explore their dreams.
Oniri is a mobile application to help people remember, understand, and control their dreams. Dreams have been ignored for a long time, but we now realize that they have a huge potential for mental hea… Read more
PEROVSKIA SOLAR AG: Enabling a Solar Cell on Every Device
PEROVSKIA SOLAR is a cleantech startup that provides digitally printed customizable solar cells to OEMs. Our vision is to enable a solar cell on every device. Our solar cells are tailored to seamlessl… Read more
Qaptis Sàrl: Technology capturing 90% of the CO2 emitted by heavy engines
Qaptis is a company that develops a technology capturing 90% of the CO2 emissions of Internal Combustion (IC) engines of heavy vehicles (trucks and boats). This capture is carried out directly from th… Read more
RAAAM: Smallest On-Chip Memory Technology for Integrated Circuits
RAAAM develops and markets the highest density on-chip memory technology that can significantly reduce the size and cost of systems-on-a-chip (SoCs). On-chip memories consume over 50% of the size and … Read more
Resilio SA: Resilio is an EPFL start-up, leading the sustainable digital
Resilio is an EPFL start-up, leading the sustainable digital transition.
We act now, to preserve tomorrow.
We provide a SaaS platform (webapp) for you to assess the environmental impact of your di… Read more
SwissInspect Sàrl: AI-Physics based inspection of infrastructures using images
SwissInspect combines structural engineering, computer vision, and artificial intelligence to provide infrastructure and buildings inspection services and a SaaS application for various B2B sectors, i… Read more
TWIICE SA: Powered exoskeletons for walking assistance
Every year, 250000 people suffer a spinal cord injury leading to permanent paraplegia. TWIICE is a modular and customizable exoskeleton for walking assistance that allows people with paraplegia to reg… Read more
Virtuosis: Unlock behavioral insights from your video calls.
Virtuosis analyzes your voice during team video calls to predict mood and communication skills. Based on online team video meetings, we deliver key insights and improve well-being at work. Read more
