An AtlasInvest Entrepreneurship Grant worth 35,000 euros has been awarded to LumiNose. This startup is working on Insect Odour Receptors, technology that mimics the sensitive sense of smell of insects for monitoring livestock health. Urban Funghi wins the award for best social initiative with impact. Urban Funghi focuses on growing oyster mushrooms in vacant properties.
The AtlasInvest Entrepreneurship Grant consists of two awards presented annually to student entrepreneurs with impactful ideas. To stand a chance of winning the prize, entrepreneurs pitch their ideas in front of a jury of experts. They stand a chance of winning start-up capital for their venture. The winners were presented at the international F&A Next event for large companies, start-ups and entrepreneurs.
LumiNose
LumiNose emerges as this year's winner. The company wins the Start-Up Award, which comes with a cash prize of 35,000 euros. The jury unanimously rated LumiNos as the most commercially promising solution within the agrifood sector. The company is developing its 'Insect Odour Receptors'. This is so-called 'biomimetics' technology, which mimics biological ideas from nature for human applications. LumiNose specifically mimics the olfactory capabilities of insects. Livestock farmers can use the technology to monitor the health of their animals.
"LumiNose had the best story, the most compelling idea, which was best protected and therefore scalable - a unique technology," reports the jury. Development manager Saptarshi Mukhopadhyay pointed in his pitch to an earlier study by Wageningen University & Research (WUR). In this, bees were trained to smell COVID-19.
LumiNose combines so-called odour receptor chips with machine learning. The resulting device enables livestock farmers to diagnose diseases in their cattle at an earlier stage than is currently possible. "We are very grateful for the award," says the team. "Now we can start lab work and demonstrate the true value of our chip."
Urban Funghi
The second award that is part of the AtlasInvest Entrepreneurship Grant is the Impact Award, which comes with a cash prize of 15,000 euros. This award was presented to Urban Funghi, a so-called 'urban mushroom farm' from Ede. The company grows oyster mushrooms locally in organic straw for restaurants, shops and consumers, among others. This cultivation process is based on organic straw. The urban farms can be easily installed in empty buildings. This facilitates scaling up production.
Among other things, the jury praised the way Urban Funghi creates "a great community" around "nomad farming", which has environmental impact. "The award will help us get sterilisation equipment, which we can use to tap alternative residual streams to grow new mushroom varieties on," the team said in a comment.
Winners from 2021
The AtlasInvest Entrepreneurship Grant is an annual award. In 2021, Scope BioSciences won the Start-up Award, which includes a cash prize of 35,000 euros. Scope BioSciences focuses on CRISPR-Cas, which has been called "most important biotechnology discovery of the past decades". Together with WUR, Scope developed ScopeDx, a type III CRISPR-Cas diagnostic platform that provides accurate molecular diagnostic results in less than 25 minutes. Among other things, the jury praised the company's potential and its growth.
The 2021 Impact Award went to Algreen. This start-up helps microalgae producers in all aspects of their business. This includes production and downstream, as well as regulation and certification. Algreen does this by combining practical experience with scientific knowledge and skills. Together with the customer, the start-up develops an algae production system that meets the needs of this specific customer.
Further information on the AtlasInvest Entrepreneurship Grant is available here.
Photo: Photorama via Pixabay
