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After events in The Hague and Berlin and Lisbon, the Get in the Ring Impact Competition – powered by ImpactCity and Unknown Group – travels to Geneva. We challenged Swiss impact startups to step up to the plate and grab the spotlight to scale their solution and expand their impact – and they answered with authority. Here are the 23 startups in the domains of food, water and energy that have been selected for dealmaking meetings with our selection of investors, corporates and governments, followed by public voting:
What They Do: Alver offer a range of High Protein Vegan Superfoods made with a Golden Chlorella micro-algae – rich in zinc, magnesium, vitamin B, omegas, carotenoids and has a full amino acid profile. Their product range includes high protein pasta, bars, soups, sauces, granola and mixed powders.
Their Impact: Alternative, plant-based protein sources such as Golden Chlorella can be produced with few resources and therefore have a clear advantage over animal proteins.
What They Do: With their proprietary process, Bloom can convert most of plant structures into petroleum like molecules, which can be used for fuels or petrochemicals.
Their Impact: Bloom protects and functionalizes biopolymer, making them more usable to replace petroleum-based materials and fuels.
What They Do: A spin-off company of ETH Zurich, Switzerland, they have discovered new science revolutionizing the purification of water and committed to implementing its water purification technologies throughout the world to bring safe, efficiently purified water to all populations.
Their Impact: BluAct technologies can work with minimum energy requirement with minimal environmental impact. It uses food grade raw materials. No secondary pollution is caused and water is entirely processed, without any waste.
What They Do:EH Group Engineering is focused on the design and production of our high performance fuel cells. They offer market leading power density and a simplified system architecture, hence cheaper & more efficient.
Their Impact: An innovative FC technology, based on a wholly redesigned microstructure that delivers a power density of 1.5-2 times that of competitors FC products.
What They Do: farmer connect’s cutting-edge software promotes fair, sustainable and traceable agriculture, enabling an inclusive and efficient supply chain from farmers to consumers. Built on emerging technologies, such as blockchain, self-sovereign identity, and AI, the agritech ecosystem allows safe and private business data storage and sharing, as well as the exchange and tracking of information and payments.
Their Impact: They are the only end-to-end, collaborative, and industry-led ecosystem – providing cutting-edge software that promotes fair, sustainable and traceable agriculture, enabling an inclusive and efficient supply chain from farmers to consumers.
What They Do: Genuine Way is a software company that enables consumer brands to certify their environmental sustainability and social impact on blockchain. Their missionis to fight green washing by creating transparency between ethical brands and ethical consumer.
Their Impact: The first blockchain tech provider within the Mediterranean area that is vertical on sustainability & CSR at an affordable rate to SME’s.
What They Do: BladeInsight delivers data-driven decision-making to the wind industry with cradle-to-grave, AI-powered digital O&M management solutions for wind turbine blades, including autonomous drone inspections and powerful asset management software.
Their Impact: By allying powerful technology with blade expertise, BladeInsight provides visibility over the state of wind turbine blades and actionable insights in order for more assertive decision-making on blade maintenance, driving down the cost of blade O&M.
What They Do: They have developed a lamp with a battery big enough to charge 2 phones and provide light. An agent is chosen in rural villages, and is installed with a big solar system as well as a lot of lamps. Each day, this agent charges the lamps with the solar system and rents them in the evening to the people of the village. In the morning they bring it back to charge.
Their Impact: hiLyte enables the poorest tranch of the population to get access to the basic electricity: charging phones and get light.
What They Do: Hive Power is developing a Software-as-a-Service for Smart Grid Analytics, to help Energy Retailers and Grid Operators to improve their asset management, through data-driven and AI-powered applications.
Their Impact: Through the Hive Platform modules, the users coordinate their physical and digital assets to improve the performance of hydropower plants, energy communities, electric vehicles fleet, and other flexibility.
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What They Do: iCEEP is a circular economy, retail-tech startup that connects consumers to their favorite brands and rewards them for giving their used items a second life.
Their Impact: They have taken takeback schemes, a core activity of the circular economy, and integrate technology, digitizing its processes to maximize its impact, gain valuable consumer insights through data collection and make the overall service more accessible and intuitive for consumers.
What They Do: Heaboo was founded in 2015 in the business incubator of the University of Aveiro to develop a conceptual solution for heat storage optimization based in phase changing materials, an idea that was drafted by the co-founder that holds a PhD degree in power engineering and a wide experience in R&D.
Their Impact: iWin combines Venetian blinds as a shading devices with photovoltaic cells inside insulated glass units to produce renewable energy and to conveniently control the incoming sunlight and with the best possible view out.
What They Do:LAGOSTA is a Swiss blue biotech company, expert in biomedical chitosan. It is produced via farming European spiny lobsters in our state-of-the-art indoor fully controlled facility.
Their Impact: They biorefine clean, stable, unique, naturally produced molts, thus generating a pure reproducible chitosan for the biopharma industry.
What They Do: They transform byproducts from food industries =into an optimized insect’s feed. Edible insect production is realized in vertical farms with controlled environment. Insects are transformed into powder and integrated in high protein insect-based products that enhance customer experience and better fit their needs.
Their Impact: Their production is local from feed to the insect-based food products and more circular than competitors.
What They Do: They address the challenge of energy access and financial inclusion in emerging markets. Through a B2B2C partnership model, we enter into agreements with local entrepreneurs and SMEs to distribute clean energy products to off-grid or under-electrified households and SMEs.
Their Impact: They are one of the only partnership-based companies that focuses on affordable financing and technology to address the challenge of energy access and financial inclusion.
What They Do:High quality, niche and sustainable ingredients to the food, nutraceuticals, phytopharma and cosmetics industries. Its model is based on regenerative agroforestry, direct support to (Indian) farming communities and full control of the process from seed to delivery.
Their Impact:Offering high quality, niche and sustainable (traceable, organic, fair) natural ingredients
What They Do: OURZ makes food transparent, unlocks trust in consumers and provides market insights to producers to leverage a sustainable food market.
Their Impact: Using their blockchain-based platform, they give consumers direct and unalterable insights into the history of the products they buy. They create a direct digital connection between consumers and everyone else who is involved in the creation of a product.
What They Do: Shematic aims to bring a more powerful, lightweight and more efficient electric motor and battery pack to the booming Light Electric Vehicle market (LEV). The new motor and battery pack technology are able to double the range and triple the commercial payloadof current LEV vehicles compared to state-of-the-art solutions.
Their Impact: They developed a new electric motor platform (motor and battery pack) that can easily replace old technology electric motors or ICE on urban vehicles. – 3 x more powerful for the same volume – 95 % efficiency over a longer part of the vehicle operational cycle.
What They Do: One of the first companies that is focused on the best-in-class flying device and its aerodynamic features: aerodynamic efficiency, adequate lifting power, low weight, intrinsic resistance, automatic takeoff, flight and landing, safety, reliability and resilience. Their proprietary patented box-wing airframe structure and wing profile are 20-25% more efficient than any of our competitors.
Their Impact: Their novel solution converts the power of abundant high-altitude winds into low cost electricity using a drone connected to a ground station, offering advantages in terms of doubling the energy output, eliminating heavy components thus reducing the environmental impact and wider deployability compared to traditional wind turbines.
What They Do: SmartHelio brings second life to solar panels, helping to generate more clean energy and prevent e-waste. They have build a patent pending hardware and deep diagnostic technology which can detect sick solar panels, helps them to get repaired and reused.
Their Impact: Our product is easy and affordable, and helping solar installers to generate more clean energy.
What They Do: The goal of TicInsect is to transform the feed and food value chain towards a circular economy. TicInsect will collect local agricultural residues and, organic waste from the food industries and the households and, using Black Soldier Fly (BSF) Hermetia illucens larvae, transform them into three high-value products: Insect meal for feed for livestock and pets, oil for biofuel and a fertiliser.
Their Impact: Through the process of bio-conversion they produce locally raw material with high biological value for the livestock and bioenergetic supply chains increasing the efficiency of the waste management chain and generating CO2 saving.
What They Do: They are developing the next generation of wind energy using autonomous tethered drones (TT100) which operate at higher altitudes for stronger winds with only a fraction of the material of a conventional wind turbine.
Their Impact: Their drones fly higher than their competition, where it can more efficiently generate energy. They use less materials to build and generate, contributing to their reduced environmental impact.
What They Do: They promote native fruits that are grown sustainably in agroforestry systems and give the fruit farmer the means to disengage from unsustainably activities, such as grazing, monocultures and ASGM, therefore protecting the forests where the fruits grow.
Their Impact: Producing and selling these fruit products provide people with an alternative fair income. Farmers are empowered and engaged with the conservation of their forests.
What They Do: VunaNexus transforms human and livestock urine into two valuable products while drastically reducing water pollution and ammonia emissions . They produce a turn-key solution for onsite urine treatment and recovery.
Their Impact: The UrinExpress is a mobile version of Vuna’s urine recycling technology. The system in a trailer can process up to 150 liters of urine per day into fertilizer.
What They Do: WattAnyWhere provides a long-term solution with Solid Oxide Fuel Cell based mobile Generators that consume BioEthanol, are ultra-silent, and deployable anywhere within 1 month.
Their Impact: Their 100% green electricity production is unique: it is independent from any infrastructure such as electricity grid or gaz pipes, allowing instant deployment at lower cost.
Congratulations to the 23 chosen startups! Vote for your favourite leading Swiss impact solution from March 18 to 25 and help them reach the Impact Finals.