From automotive to novel food: here are the winning start-ups of the Deep Tech Revolution tender
Names announced of Italian business projects that will participate in Area Science Park's programme to promote and support deep tech innovation
The five winning start-ups of the Deep Tech Revolution call for proposals, which awards a total of EUR 1 million in funding aimed at fostering the development of innovative high-tech entrepreneurial projects, have been unveiled: the national research organisation Area Science Park has in fact announced the names of the young entrepreneurial realities that will receive funds, EUR 200,000 each, half of which in cash and half in services dedicated to research and development. The programme also includes an accompanying phase lasting a total of one year and two international study visits that will enable participants to come into close contact with the main innovation and research realities through networking activities with researchers, experts and entrepreneurs, visits to centres of excellence and training bootcamps; in addition, both the startuppers of the funded projects and the researchers will be able, for the first time, to access the Area Science Park laboratories for instrumental investigations, structural, cellular and molecular biology, analysis of nanomaterials and other innovative materials, as well as the High Performance Computing infrastructure with the Data Engineering laboratory, including the network of demonstrators of the Digital Innovation Hub.
"For Area, Deep Tech Revolution represents an ambitious challenge within the organisation's strategy, born out of the convergence of its well-established expertise in innovation and business generation and its recently developed scientific research skills. The project supports high-risk ideas and initiatives, which precisely because of their innovative nature have greater difficulty in finding backers. In this context, the role of Area Science Park, as a public research body, can be decisive in creating the conditions for these projects to emerge and develop, absorbing part of the risk that the market, in some cases, is not yet willing to bear,' explained Area Science Park President Caterina Petrillo.
From supercapacitors for electric mobility to satellite optical communications and futuristic superfoods, among the winners is Soundsafe Care: an accredited spin-off of the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Pisa that intends to redefine the standards of surgery with ultrasound and robotic technologies through its Zero scar project (ØSCAR 2.0). The team, in fact, is engaged in the development of devices capable of performing precise extracorporeal procedures by eliminating the need for incisions but above all by protecting the surrounding healthy tissues through localised and robot-assisted ablation of tumour tissue. Then there is the Roman project entitled US4BIOMA: Ultrasounds for Bioeconomy of Microalgae by Yeastime, which develops deep-tech solutions for the optimisation of biotechnological processes through ultrasound stimulation. More specifically, the project involves the development of new systems for growing microalgae using ultrasound modules in different reactor configurations. The startup aims to improve biomass productivity and enhance the accumulation of high-value bioactive compounds so that these substances can be applied in the so-called novel food, nutraceuticals and industrial biotechnology sectors. Also named among the winners was the innovative startup Novac of Modena with its SCARF project - Structural supercapacitor pack for Automotive applications embedded in a Reinforced carbon fibre shell, which aims to improve a supercapacitor to be coupled to battery packs used in the automotive sector in order to provide extra power to vehicles. In fact, the technology adopted would allow the capacitor to be integrated inside a carbon fibre shell, occupying volumes of the vehicle that are usually unused and, on the other hand, allowing a reduction in the size of the main battery.
The fourth project chosen is called SuperSwitch - Scalable HTS Switching Devices for Efficient Superconducting Power Systems and it is proposed by the spin-off Magnetic Future of the Mercatorum University and the University of Bologna, which wants to validate a class of high-temperature superconducting switches (HTS) as well as essential parts for flux pumps: in other words, they are innovative power supplies that improve the efficiency of magnets from an energy point of view. And, finally, there is the Milan-based start-up SatEnlight, which is involved in terrestrial and satellite communications and is proposing with Unlocking the full potential of Optical Communications two patents for an optical reception system based on orbital angular momentum (OAM) that exploits 'optical vortices' to multiply multiple data channels on a single laser beam, thereby increasing bandwidth efficiency significantly. Their mission is to set a new standard for high-performance space communications.
"We were really impressed by the quality of the proposals submitted. They demonstrate not only an exceptional level of scientific and technological excellence, but also a keen interest in translating these achievements into benefits for society. The initiative is very solid and promises great developments for the future,' said Pablo Garcia Tello, Head of the EU Project Development and Initiatives Section at CERN in Geneva, who chaired the committee that evaluated the projects and selected the five start-ups awarded the funds. In fact, from the 187 expressions of interest to the 80 projects that finalised the application, participation involved no less than 14 regions out of 20 with leading poles such as Rome, Trieste, Udine, Bologna and Padua, but also with a significant presence in Southern Italy, sufficient to draw a map of innovation that intertwines human capital, research and enterprise, and highlights a growing maturity and increasingly solid project quality on a national scale.
