Ten start-ups show well-honed pitches in conclusion of EIT Health Validation Lab

A scanner that uses AI to quickly assess wounds was the winner, while the runners up were innovations for use in surgery and after, at the pitch contest that wrapped up the 2019 edition of the EIT Health Validation Lab, an eight-week pressure cooker for early-stage start-ups.

The final Pitch Day, which welcomed more than 100 guests to YES!Delft in Delft, The Netherlands, allowed all ten medtech start-ups participating in the Validation Lab to present their business ideas in front of a jury.

Validation Lab, an EIT Health Accelerator Bootcamp, is a tried and proven intensive programme to train early-stage start-ups in identifying their market potential. Over the course of eight weeks, the ten participating start-ups had the opportunity to travel across the Netherlands and Europe to validate their business case. Meeting with experts at leading universities, healthcare companies and hospitals, such as Reinier de Graaf in Delft, Haaglanden MC in The Hague, HealthValley Nijmegen and the Leiden Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (PLNT), start-ups tested the market potential of their ideas.

Winning start-ups

Kronikare, the winner of this fifth edition of Validation Lab, is a start-up developing a wound scanner that uses AI to automate the process of wound assessment so that it takes only 30 seconds. By providing a real-time solution, the team hopes to give clinicians more time to improve their work.

The runners up were Slam Ortho, a device that assists surgeons in measuring holes drilled into bone, and VitalFlap, which monitors blood flow after reconstructive breast surgery, to detect potential problems earlier.

“It is brilliant how much the pitches improved since I saw the startups in our hospital just a few weeks ago,” said Marten van der Elst, one of the jury members, working at Reinier de Graaf. 

As the winner of the pitch competition, KroniKare will get a ticket to this year’s edition of the EIT Health Summit, which will take place 2-3 December 2019 in Paris, France.

This article was first published 6 November 2019 by EIT Health.