Congratulations to our $100k Launch Winners:
Grand Prize: Ocular Technologies
Runner-up: AgZen
MEET OUR 2020 LAUNCH FINALISTS
AgZen: Only 2% of sprayed pesticide reaches its target (plant surfaces). This inefficiency forces over-spraying and results in the pollution of soil, water sources and the atmosphere. This contamination leads to 200K deaths/year and illnesses including cancer and neurological disorders. Pesticides have a market size of $60B globally and $15B in the US. Our field-tested spray and formulation technology allows us to reduce pesticide usage by 50%. Based on our business model, the TAM is $7.5B.
GC Therapeutics: GC Therapeutics is developing the next generation of cell therapies (a market worth $55B by 2024). We use synthetic biology to program patient-derived stem cells into any differentiated cell-type with best-in-class efficiency (10x), speed (100x) and scalability. Leveraging this breakthrough process, our team can program additional cellular features and go beyond simply replacing damaged cells, thereby introducing the new concept of “SuperCell™ Therapy” to allow the tailoring of cells to specific clinical indications.
Harmony Desal: $30 billion dollars will be invested in seawater desalination over the next 5 years. The dominant technology in desalination today is Reverse Osmosis (RO). While RO is trusted and proven, it is also energy intensive. Our technology, batch RO, is the most energy-efficient RO configuration. In batch RO, a time-varying pressure tracks the osmotic pressure to increase water recovery while consuming less energy. Batch RO has been proven at the bench-scale (TRL: 4.5) and is ready to get out of the lab and into the market.
Hikma Health: We believe that every patient deserves personalized care, no matter where they are. To achieve this vision, we create customized health data systems to improve outcomes for patients, and deploy these systems in partnership with NGOs providing free healthcare to vulnerable populations. We launched with the support of the MIT Media Lab Refugee Learning Accelerator, and are growing driven by our vision to empower our patients and physicians with Hikma – healing wisdom.
Le Qara: Le Qara means leather in “quechua” (Inca’s native language). Le Qara is a biotech company born to give a solution to the problems in the leather industry. Le Qara is a new vegan bioleather. It’s made by microorganisms using biotechnology, so it does not come from animal slaughter. It’s 100% eco-friendly and biodegradable, we don’t use any toxic chemicals in our process and our microorganisms are fed with residues from plants and fruits. Our vegan bioleather can replicate any type of leather; because we can bioengineer it by changing its texture, thickness and flexibility.
Ocular Technologies: 220 million people worldwide suffer from preventable or treatable blindness, yet are unable to access eye care due to the limited supply of eye specialists and the distance between patients and eye doctors. Ocular Technologies is developing a hardware-enabled telemedicine platform powered by machine learning algorithms. Our solution transforms patient access to high quality eye care by capturing high magnification videos of anterior segment exams and enabling ophthalmologists to make a diagnosis remotely.
Spatio Metrics: At Spatio Metrics, we’re working towards a future in which every building makes us healthier. Our B2B analytics software helps architects and their clients bridge the gap between design, data, and performance. Our first product helps healthcare architects quantify the human and financial impact of design by analyzing hospital floor plans to reveal how facility design choices can improve quality of care, operational efficiency, and wellbeing. Our structured datasets, detailed floor plan visualizations, and holistic scorecards support architects and their clients during the design process to save time, save money, and save lives.
Thiozen: Hydrogen produced by fossil fuel reforming (96% total production) contributes to 2.3% of global warming emissions. We invented a patented process to generate hydrogen that is 20% less expensive and 75% less carbon intense than current methods used in oil and gas. As an illustration, our process would save the average US refinery $9.6M each year and avoid 60K tons of CO2 emissions, roughly 20% of a refineries annual carbon footprint.
Due to the situation surrounding COVID-19, the timing and format of the semi-finals and finals will change.
Applicants will be notified of these changes on an ongoing basis.
LAUNCH
MIT Launch is a comprehensive business plan competition in which teams compete to plan and prepare their venture for the marketplace. Semi-finalists are expected to present not just prototypes, but full business plans. They receive funding and mentorship along the way, and finalists present onstage to a 2,000+ live audience from Cambridge, Boston, and beyond. The Grand Prize?