Angelos Chronis
Company name:
InFraRed
University/Research institute:
Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH
Industry:
Architecture Engineering & Construction (AEC)
Maturity level of idea:
Working Prototype
Corporate fellowship:

Angelos Chronis

InFraRed

Climate change is no longer a debate but a real urgency. City planners, developers, architects and municipalities need to understand the impact of our buildings on the environment and make resilient plans for the future. However, environmental simulations are very complex, time consuming and not accessible. InFraReD is a platform for resilient city planning based on Artificial Intelligence. It uses state of the art machine learning models to provide real-time simulation prediction on complex environmental simulations, such as wind, solar radiation and thermal comfort. InFraReD’s models are trained on large simulation data sets to be able to give instant feedback on design decisions, minimizing the complexity and resources required and making advanced environmental simulations accessible to all. InFraReD introduces a “Simulation As A Service” model, as it provides simulation results to end users (through its web app), CAD software (through CAD integration) as well as other web platforms, creating an open integration model that expands its accessibility.

„InFraReD – An Intelligent Framework for Resilient Design“
Anna Pölzl
Company name:
gnista.io
University/Research institute:
TU Wien
Industry:
IoT
Maturity level of idea:
Early Customer Stage
Corporate fellowship:

Anna Pölzl

gnista.io

gnista.io - empowering people to work with IoT Data in order to improve processes.
Working with IoT Data is complex, inefficient and takes highly skilled data scientists and developers and therefore often doesn’t pay off. This results in only 20% of already existing data currently being used to improve processes. With the amount of data produced growing fast, less talent available and the increasing need for constant efficiency improvement this problem becomes extremely pressing for energy providers, manufacturers etc. gnista.io empowers non-data scientists to get valuable insights from sensor data in a production environment with the ultimate goal to reduce emissions and costs as well as increase control. Semantic ontologies keep data organised and make it available for any data driven solutions customers want to implement. This makes gnista.io the foundation of working efficiently with IoT Data and scaling data driven use cases in the industry.  The SaaS is currently working as closed-beta. The beta version will be published in autumn this year. Curious minds can already sign up to our waitlist. These sign ups are currently growing by 20% each month.

„gnista.io- empowering people to work with IoT Data in order to constantly improve processes and reduce emissions.“
Christian Hill
Company name:
BRAVE Analytics GmbH
University/Research institute:
Medical University of Graz
Industry:
Life Science (Pharma, Biotech), Material technology
Maturity level of idea:
Working prototype (TRL 5)
Corporate fellowship:

Christian Hill

BRAVE Analytics GmbH

The invention of the patented OF2i® technology – a revolutionary method to characterize particles and samples in the nanometer range on-line and continuously based on microfluidics and photonics – led to the foundation of the deep tech university spin-off BRAVE Analytics in 2020 in Graz.
The main target of the start-up is the translation of the patented OF2i® technology into sensor platforms which are able of automated on-line, real time, 24/7 continuous, statistically relevant, number-based nano particle characterization directly integrable into the manufacturing processes. OF2i® offers much deeper and representative live insights into the nano world compared to conventional reference measurement methods: Being still a bottleneck in production processes, the measurement and characterization of nanoparticles in real-time drastically gains relevance.Pharmaceutical, biotech & medical products, cosmetics, paper, paints, surface coatings, lubricants and many more can radically be optimized by applying nano principles. BRAVE Analytics provides hardware and software solutions as well as servicing and license models.

Unveil new biophysical insights to improve products in life sciences and beyond.
Gregor Weisgrab
Company name:
Biomotion Technologies
University/Research institute:
Industry:
3D Printing, Medical Devices, Biotechnology
Maturity level of idea:
Working Prototype
Corporate fellowship:

Gregor Weisgrab

Biomotion Technologies

Tissue engineering human organs is the ultimate frontier in medicine. These tissues are fabricated using 3D bioprinting, whereby biocompatible materials and cells are deposited layer by layer. Increasing initiatives in the past years have given rise to a broad range of such tissue models, such as skin, bone, cartilage, liver and kidney. However, the lack of full automation in 3D bioprinting processes impacts the consistency of the process, including batch-to-batch variation and machine-to-machine variation. Together with an unclear regulatory path, the adoption of using 3D bioprinted constructs by pharmaceutical companies is hindered. Biomotion offers 3D bioprinters with real-time process monitoring that minimize process variation. This in-line quality management system reduces the amount of failed prints and enables the validation of such constructs against future regulatory guidelines.
Tissue manufacturers benefit from a data-based decision making process enabling the repeatable fabrication of human tissues.

We enable consistent 3D bioprinting to repeatably produce high-quality human tissue models, accelerating the uptake of bioprinting in research and clinical applications.
Konstantinos Kostarakos
Company name:
LinoEx
University/Research institute:
Institute of Biology, University of Graz
Industry:
Life Science
Maturity level of idea:
Close to Prototype
Corporate fellowship:

Konstantinos Kostarakos

LinoEx

Invasive pests such as the Asian fruitfly Drosophila suzukii constitute a big problem for viticulture as they infest young grapes and can cause crop damages by more than 80%. Our start-up project, LinoEx, aims to develop and commercialize botanical pesticides against various pest insects as an alternative to synthetic pesticides. The use of synthetic pesticides is problematic as they are harmful for humans and can cause severe environmental problems. Our main customers are organic winegrowers. Our botanical pesticides are based on natural oils that are effective against specific target organisms but harmless for the environment.The current market potential for biological pesticides within Austria and the EU is very high, due to the steady increase in organic agriculture and the high awareness of customers for sustainable pest control. We aim to cooperate B2B with distributors to supply organic farmers with our products for a safe and sustainable agriculture.

Botanical pesticides for a safe and sustainable agriculture
Markus Hochegger
Company name:
RenSurf
University/Research institute:
University of Graz / Institute of Chemistry
Industry:
Chemical industry
Maturity level of idea:
Close to prototype
Corporate fellowship:

Markus Hochegger

RenSurf

Traditional large-scale surfactants rely on either fossil fuel or virgin imported feedstocks such as palm oil or coconut oil. A paradigm shift is on the horizon, as manufacturers are now seeking to use renewable resources, with sustainability being the major market driver in Europe and NA. We at RenSurf envision to introduce a novel concept of superior performing scalable bio-based surfactants fully derived from local waste streams. The approach starts from a bottom-up disruptive design combined with fundamental catalysis and green chemistry to achieve better reactivity, less chemical waste, and better performance compared to the commercially available competitors. It is of utmost importance that our technology is focusing on neglected waste streams, while successfully competing with fossilfuel-based surfactants. Our future customers are surfactant manufacturers and product formulators in field of personal care, detergents, and agrochemicals. Hence, the primary revenue stream will come from contracted-/collaborative research and generating/selling IPs.

Superior performance – clean conscience
Patrik Aspermair
Company name:
BEAR technologies
University/Research institute:
Austrian institute of technology
Industry:
IoT, machine learning, smart sensors
Maturity level of idea:
Close to Prototype
Corporate fellowship:

Patrik Aspermair

BEAR technologies

Can our smartphone smell?
BEAR technologies offer a new technology to enable electronical devices such as smartphones to perceive odorants in their environment and enables a totally new field of applications. From lifestyle products to industrial fabrication - odorants are omnipresent but we do not utilize them yet.
Our developed fabrication method paired with machine learning and edge computing on an IoT device mimics the mechanism of the human nose in a reliable, fast and low-priced way. The goal is to achieve the first odorant database and a globally spread sensor network to allow for tailor made solutions for our partners in food-, lifestyle-, logistics-, automotive- & health industries as well as security aspects. A concept of replaceable and scale-able sensor-units together with the odorant database and unprecedent knowledge in odorant sensing guarantees a continuous revenue and binds business partners to BEAR technologies – be part of the art of smell sensing.

new challenges create new solutions and create new markets
Raffael Baumfried
Company name:
SpeedPox GmbH
University/Research institute:
TU Wien
Industry:
Engineering Plastics & Composites
Maturity level of idea:
Working Prototype
Corporate fellowship:

Raffael Baumfried

SpeedPox GmbH

Epoxy resins are incredibly versatile plastics. Boat building, automotive and aerospace industries, construction companies, there is hardly a trade that can do without this curing plastic. Usually, the plastic consists of two components. They must be mixed in an additional working step in a precisely specified ratio and then have only a very small processing window. SpeedPox® offers ready-mixed epoxy resins that can be used immediately and have an unlimited pot life. Upon a heat or UV stimulus on demand, a patented self-propagating mechanism is triggered which helps to save time, energy and costs. The curing technology is applicable on every common epoxy resin on the market and the transfer to it is easily obtainable. Conventional curing in large industrial ovens can thus be bypassed completely. The SpeedPox® systems can also be used for composite materials and even under water.
We are currently executing numerous development contracts with strategic customers. Our future business model should be based on the development, adaptation, production and sale of special epoxy resins.

SpeedPox® offers innovative and ultra-fast curing epoxy systems with unlimited pot life which helps to save time, energy and costs.
Theresa Hautz-Neunteufel
Company name:
organLife
University/Research institute:
Universität Innsbruck
Industry:
Life Science
Maturity level of idea:
Concept defined
Corporate fellowship:

Theresa Hautz-Neunteufel

organLife
Pavel Ševela
Company name:
SOPHIE smart shower
University/Research institute:
Spin-off of the University of Innsbruck, Austria
Industry:
Green Tech / Building services / Energy efficiency
Maturity level of idea:
Close to Prototype
Corporate fellowship:

Pavel Ševela

SOPHIE smart shower

Hot water is the main source of heat consumption for newly built or renovated houses. Every day, more than 22,000,000 m3 of still hot water is sent to the sewage system in European households alone. The key role play showers, accounting for about 70 % of the total hot water demand. This changes with the SOPHIE smart shower, which integrates a heat exchanger that transfers the heat of the warm outflowing water (35°C) to the cold inflowing fresh water (10°C). SOPHIE also integrates its own heater so that the module operates without connection to an otherwise inefficient central hot water system. SOPHIE is designed to fit into every bathroom, allowing the pre-installed technology to disappear in a wall-integrated shower unit. Designed for easy planning and quick installation under one hour, SOPHIE significantly increases the work efficiency. SOPHIE sets new standards for hotels, sports facilities (payback in 1st year) or households (payback 5-7 years) by saving up to 80% of hot water energy costs and thus CO² emissions without sacrificing comfort.