Ten startups nominated for the W. A. Vigier award

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29.03.2016

The W. A. Vigier Foundation has nominated ten innovative projects out of the initially submitted 200 projects. On the Award ceremony of 19 May 2016, five Swiss Startups to receive the W. A. Vigier award will be announced and each will be endowed with CHF 100‘000.

The projects were evaluated according to the following criteria: The entrepreneurial spirit of the CEO, the degree of innovation, the value for society as a whole, the technical and financial viability, market prospects and the potential for job creation. „The selection is a challenging and time consuming task! The board members work together with external scientific and economic experts and invest many hours every year, some of which are pro bono“, says Regula Buob.

These are the ten nominees

EcoRobotix from Yverdon-les-Bains (VD): ecoRobotics developed a solar-powered robot for weeding row crops. Equipped with artificial vision, it detects and destroys weeds, either mechanically or by accurate herbicide dispensing, resulting in herbicide savings of over 95%.

Femtoprint from Muzzano (TI): Femtoprint produces 3D microdevices out of glass; integrating optical, fluidic, mechanical features down to the nano-scale in a monolith. This technology can revolutionize a wide range of markets and applications.

Gamaya from Ecublens (VD): Gamaya delivers large-scale analytics of farmland. Farmers are provided with actionable information about their land and crops, which can increase profit margins by at least 30% while raising the quality of produce and making farming more sustainable.

Inositec from Zurich (ZH): Inositec is developing novel therapeutics from its proprietary platform of small molecules. The lead product is a novel treatment for a widespread colon infection and the second is an inhibitor of vascular calcifications.

Nanolive from Ecublens (VD): Nanolive’s technology allows the exploration of living cells in 3D and without damaging them. The 3D Cell Explorer shows a comprehensive representation of the cells' activity in real time based on their physical properties.

Peripal from Zurich (ZH): Peripal is a patient aid device for dialysis at home. The device simplifies the therapy and thus shortens training time. With every dyalisis patient treated at home, the healthcare system saves 10 to 20'000 USD per year.

PiaVita from Zurich (ZH): PiaVita provides vets and pet-owners with small med tech devices to measure vital signs of animals. Thanks to its small size, the device doesn’t bother the animal while providing precise data supporting an accurate diagnosis.

Pregnolia from Zurich (ZH): In the US and Europe less than half of the women at risk for preterm birth are detected. Pregnolia measures cervical stiffness and can reliably assess the risk of preterm birth, enabling early therapeutic intervention.

UrbanAlps from Zurich (ZH): Today anybody can copy your house key. UrbanAlps brings the Stealth Key: an inexpensive mechanical key that is safe against 3D duplication. The solution is plain simple, a key which hides most of its mechanical security features internally – rendering the key unscannable.

ViDi Systems from Villaz-St-Pierre (FR): ViDi enables computers, machines and cars to understand images so they can interact with the real world. Our Deep Learning Software autonomously learns from images, leading to decisions with superhuman performances, without any programming.

About the Vigier Award
The Vigier Award is the oldest and highest endowed prize for startups in Switzerland, giving away CHF 100‘000 to five startups each year. In 26 years the foundation has distributed over CHF 10 million of seed money. This has resulted in approximately 80 flourishing startups, successful IPOs, multiple company exits and most importantly, many newly created jobs.

(RAN)

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