Every day, Global University Venturing rounds up the smaller investments from across the university innovation ecosystem in its deal net.
FenX and Polariton Technologies, two Switzerland-based spinouts of ETH Zurich targeting fibre-optic modulator and building insulation applications respectively, have each collected CHF150,000 ($151,000) of pre-seed funding from accelerator Venture Kick’s Startup Funding Initiative, Organisator reported on Friday. FenX has devised an approach to convert industrial mineral byproducts into insulating foam panels to mitigate fire within buildings, while Polariton aims to deliver compact electro-optical modulators with transfer speeds up to 500 GHz faster than existing fibre optic communications modulators. FenX and Polariton expect to secure seed rounds during 2020 sized at $1.5m and $1m-$2m respectively – FenX aims to complete European regulatory approvals before piloting its insulation materials, while Polariton has sought to validate its business proposal and contact potential partners, having also raised funding through the Innobooster initiative, part of Denmark’s Innovation Fund.
Pats, a Netherlands-based horticultural pest extermination drone developer spun out of TU Delft, has received €250,000 ($275,000) of funding from Uniiq, an EU-backed proof-of-concept fund for South Holland province. The funding will aid research, knowledge and product development on Pats’s main project – a moth-killing drone connected to observation cameras which raise an alert whenever a moth is detected, as a way of replacing pesticides on crop plantations. Pats’s co-founders include Sjoerd Tijmons, whose TU Delft postdoctoral thesis centred on the autonomous flight of flapping wing aerial vehicles, and Kevin van Hecke, a scientific researcher at the university specialised in embedded drone vision systems
