The SPIE Startup Challenge has taken place annually for over a decade. This competitive event invites new entrepreneurs to pitch their light-based technology business plans to a team of business development experts and investors.
During a ceremony at SPIE Photonics West, the 2023 winners of the 13th annual SPIE Startup Challenge were announced.
Swave Photonics — with their Holographic eXtended Reality chips based on proprietary diffractive photonics technology — was announced the winner of the $10,000 top prize.
QART Medical, utilizing biophotonics and data for 3D analysis of sperm cells during IVF, received $5,000 for second place.
PhosPrint came in third, winning $2,500, with their novel bioprinting technology that repairs in vivo human tissue during surgery.
All cash prizes are provided by SPIE Startup Challenge Founding Partner Jenoptik.
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VitreaLab’s laser-lit chip is disrupting the 2D and 3D display market. |
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OptoFlex provides flexible, biocompatible integrated photonics for intraoperative monitoring in the cochlea. |
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Data In A Blink of an eye. Our WINK-ol is a virtual fibre optic link that transmits data from industrial vehicles to the operation center at 1.5+Gbps. |
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Odin is developing a wearable diagnostic that assesses extremity hemodynamics; allowing caregivers to identify perfusion injuries and complications. |
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Senorics builds low-cost, mobile, and robust spectroscopic systems which bring spectroscopy to the B2C mass market - detect. know. decide. |
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Avenda Health is treating prostate cancer in the clinic while preserving quality of life. |
Winner: VitreaLab
VitreaLab’s laser-lit chip is disrupting the 2D and 3D display market.
2nd Place: Quantopticon
Quantopticon builds simulation software for quantum photonic hardware and devices.
3rd Place: Luminess
Luminess Detectors, a versatile platform for safer, more sensitive and more reliable X-ray medical imaging.
Healthcare Track
Winner: Advanced Optronics, LLC
OptoFlex provides flexible, biocompatible integrated photonics for intraoperative monitoring in the cochlea.
2nd Place: LASE Innovation
Enabling highly multiplexed single-cell analysis with novel laser particles — next generation light-emitting probes.
3rd Place: Prebeo
KVAS is a transportable OCT device and an image-processing algorithm for non-invasive quantitative assessment of donor kidney quality.
Deep Tech Track
Winner: InABlink
Data In A Blink of an eye. Our WINK-ol is a virtual fibre optic link that transmits data from industrial vehicles to the operation center at 1.5+Gbps.
2nd Place: OwlAI
Owl’s 3D thermal camera with ranging operates day and night, in any weather, to classify people, animals and vehicles for safer robotic mobility.
3rd Place: Ki3Photonics
Enabling quantum communication networks today.
Healthcare Track
Winner: Odin Technologies, LLC
Odin is developing a wearable diagnostic that assesses extremity hemodynamics, allowing caregivers to identify perfusion injuries and complications.
2nd Place: Rubitection
The Rubitect Assessment System (RAS) is an optical skin health and wellness tool for diagnosis and monitoring with an initial application to early pressure ulcer (bedsore) prevention.
3rd Place: Eysz, Inc.
Leave no seizure undetected.
Deep Tech Track
Winner: Senorics GmbH
Senorics builds low-cost, mobile and robust spectroscopic systems which bring spectroscopy to the B2C mass market - detect. know. decide.
2nd Place: Labby Inc.
Labby is a data company that is combining optical sensing with AI to help dairy farms become more profitable through real-time milk analysis.
3rd Place: Circle Optics
Hydra is setting a new standard for 360° content capture by making it as easy as a regular point and shoot camera.
Winner: Avenda Health
Avenda Health is treating prostate cancer in the clinic while preserving quality of life.
2nd Place: Radiance 4D
A revolutionary 3D printing technology inspired by tomography prints the entire 3D volume of an object at once, unlike slow, layer-based alternatives.
3rd Place: Opto Biolabs
Opto Biolabs' core product is a temperature-controlled LED illumination device that allows the analysis of optogenetic experiments in a flow cytometer.
Winner: PhotoniCare, Inc.
The PhotoniCare ClearView is a simple, low-cost imaging platform that enables users to see through tissue. Visualize the middle ear without cutting the eardrum open.
2nd Place: CareWear Corp.
CareWear Firefly is a wearable therapeutic light patch using printed LEDs and CFQD film to treat pain and accelerate recovery from soft tissue injury.
3rd Place: Orbis Diagnostics, Ltd.
Orbis will allow smart dairy farmers to innovate by providing key data about core business — producing excellent milk from the healthiest animals in the most sustainable way.
Winner: Cellino Biotech
Using lasers and nanotechnology to cure any viral or genetic disease that affects the blood.
2nd Place: IC Touch
Sight for the visually impaired using cornea-based “symbolic” imaging via tactile spatial stimulation.
3rd Place: Lumedica
Making eye imaging more affordable, accessible and easier to use.
Winner: Double Helix, LLC.
Double Helix replaces prediction with evidence at the single molecule level inside the individual cell, enabling seeing biology we would have otherwise missed.
2nd Place: Diagnostic anSERS, Inc.
Building a "Marijuana Breathalyzer" to answer the question, "How high is the suspect right now?"
3rd Place: Disease Diagnostic Group
What if we told you we could save one million lives every year with just refrigerator magnets and a laser pointer?
Winner: Briteseed, LLC.
SafeSnips is a novel tissue-detecting technology that gives surgeons critical information to make more confident decisions in the operating room.
2nd Place: XARION Laser Acoustics
Membrane-free Optical Microphone: Moving sounds without moving parts.
3rd Place: Picoyune
Picoyune's patented plasmonic film can replace a lab bench worth of equipment with a robust, portable detector that anyone can operate.
Winner: University of Western Australia
A miniaturized optical coherence tomography probe, small enough to be encased in a needle — a 'microscope-in-a-needle'. With its high resolution imaging, it can allow the surgeon to find the edge of the cancer in real-time during surgery, allowing them to get the surgery right first time.
2nd Place: PlenOptika
PlenOptika is addressing the global shortage of optometrists with the QuickSee: an innovative, low-cost device that provides eyeglass prescriptions at the push of a button.
3rd Place: MagBiosense
MagBiosense develops a diagnostic device and assay for heart attack, offering laboratory-quality sensitivity and the rapid results and ease of use of a point-of-care system.
Winner: fastCHECK
A revolutionary 3D surface inspection system that is amazingly fast, accurate and easy-to-use.
2nd Place: Nicoya Lifescience
Compact, low cost, high performance optical biosensors for point-of-care diagnostics.
3rd Place: ColdSteel Laser
ColdSteel Laser is a medical device company from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center developing the Remote Image Guided Endoscopic Surgery (RIGES) platform to improve minimally invasive surgery.
Biophotonics Division
Winner: Dr. Carlos Serpa of LaserLeap Inc.
Tunneling drugs through the skin.
2nd Place: Dr. Babak Shadgan
Noninvasive diagnosis of bladder dysfunction using near infrared spectroscopy.
3rd Place (Tie): T. Scott Rowe
The Ocular Prognostics MPR: Macular pigment measurement made easy.
3rd Place (Tie): Dr. Daniel Gareau
Noninvasive cellular morphometry for melanoma detection: meet "Melanomore!" the robot pathologist.
Opto-electronics Division
Winner: Samuel Schaefer
A smart, compact microscope in the palm of your hand.
2nd Place: Yin Wang
A novel point-of-care breath analyzer.
3rd Place: Petrus Johannes Venter
Low cost integrated light sources in CMOS.
Winner: Hariharan Subramanian, Research Associate, Northwestern University
Screening for lung cancer using partial wave spectroscopic microscopy.
2nd Place: Chang Won, Post-doc, Temple University
Detecting malignant tumors with tactile imaging system.
3rd Place: Natan T. Shaked, Post-doc, Duke University
InCh Microscope: Compact and portable quantitative phase microscope for label-free cell imaging.