Venture Creation Labs 2024: Navigating the Future of SynBio Startups
The productive four-week Venture Creation Labs have officially concluded, with 82 startups onboarded from across the region! Over the course of four weeks, our bioentrepreneurs delved into workshops, mentorship sessions, and pitching opportunities, emerging with newfound knowledge and refined strategies to drive their ventures forward.
“We started VCL without an idea, and now we have a whole detailed Gantt chart for the project. That (the progress) speaks for itself. I personally have learned a lot.”
iGEM Startups is dedicated to revolutionizing bioentrepreneurship and contributing to innovation in the field. We'd like to provide SynBio enthusiasts and iGEMers an exceptional experience and provide them with top-notch tools to fully engage and kickstart their bio-entrepreneurial journey.
Here are some exciting highlights and milestones at Venture Creation Labs 2024:
Record Participation: This year, VCL welcomed an impressive cohort of 82 startups, representing diverse industries and regions. A remarkable 110.5% increase in team numbers compared to the previous year. The program's expansion reflects the growing enthusiasm for entrepreneurship within the iGEM Startups community.
Extended Duration: Building on the success of our previous programs, VCL 2024 extended its duration from three weeks to four, allowing for a more comprehensive curriculum. The additional week featured specialized workshops on fundraising, helping startups to navigate the complexities of securing investment.
Branding Guidelines Launch: Startups were equipped with essential tools to refine their brand identity and enhance their pitch presentations through the launch of branding guidelines. This initiative aimed to bolster startups' storytelling abilities and foster professional branding practices.
Reflecting on their entrepreneurial journey, our startups shared their experiences of what this four-week VCL has been to them
“We changed our course slightly! The science itself remained unchanged, but our IP protection strategy as well as our go-to market strategy have undergone massive growth. We have begun to dedicate more resources towards our IP, reaching out to several local IP experts as well as focusing on bolstering our connection to our beachhead market (our own university). We were incredibly glad to be a part of this program, and hope to continue our connection to iGEM throughout our journey in the exciting startup space.”
“Our startup started very small and lacked a lot of essentials before the start of the VCL. As the VCL progressed, we managed to develop our startup in many aspects and also learn various skills in the field of business and entrepreneurship. The journey was tough, but we grasped a lot of benefits out of every challenge.”
“Going into this three week programme we already had a general direction we wanted to head into. We were certain about the potency of VCL to guide us in the right direction. We gained so much insightful knowledge that we got to apply to our startup building logic and we managed to accumulate a plethora of new data that made us reconsider things such as our go to market strategy. Because of VCL and the excellent speakers of each session we had the opportunity to course-correct and fine tune every single aspect of our endeavor as well as discover new paths into the world of entrepreneurship, previously unknown to us”
Celebrating Startup Success on VCL Pitching Day!
As VCL 2024 wraps up with remarkable milestones achieved and valuable feedback received, we celebrate the impressive growth and accomplishments of startups within the iGEM Startups community.
Venture Creation Labs 2024 Americas - Pitch Showcase
VCL Americas
- Grand Prize Winner: Venosynth, a venom-based biocidal pesticides for agricultural solutions.
- Runner Up: RhizeUp, bioengineering rhizobium to solubilize and uptake excess inorganic phosphate from fertilizer runoff to protect waterways from eutrophication.
- Community Impact Award: Eden Terraforming, a startup offering microbiome solutions to protect vineyards against climate change
- Judge's Choice Award: ClearMark Biosciences, a startup seeking to design a rapid, accessible, concussion diagnostic platform and PAQTA, a startup focused on sustainable agriculture through scientific exploration and innovation.
- Best Presentation Award: Astromycota, a startup producing a recombinant strain of Fusarium venenatum, that can provide special nutrients to astronauts while protecting them from bone loss in a microgravity environment, and Nambi Bioglow, a startup creating bioluminescent microalgae, making an alternative lighting solution powered by the sun and wastewater for a greener future illuminated by life.
- Best Participation Award: Greenlith, a startup specialized in cellulose beads acting like tiny sponges that would selectively capture Li ions from shredded lithium batteries
Venture Creation Labs 2024 EMEA- Pitch Showcase
VCL EMEA
- Grand Prize Winner: NitroDuck, a startup growing duckweed on liquid manure in scalable vertical containers to utilize valuable nitrogen into protein and use it as a feed for livestock on-site.
- Runner Up: NanoXeno Therapeutics, a startup providing solutions to unmet needs in cancer treatment by redesigning aptamers into XNA and equipping them with nanocarrier systems to directly address their efficacy and penetration limitations.
- Community Impact Award: Versioned Science, a startup to help usher in a new research paradigm, making it faster, more collaborative, more reliable and open to all.
- Most Innovative Solution: ProGenius, a startup using naturally occurring oral bacteria, and rewriting the rules of cancer treatment.
- Judge's Choice Award: FemFlux, a startup focused on a noninvasive biosensor offering real-time monitoring of hormonal fluctuations and personalized treatment administration for women navigating perimenopause and menopause.
- Best Presentation Award: SUPER, a startup developing a novel therapeutic platform for Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), which is an autoimmune condition that mainly targets synovial joints, resulting in prominent joint inflammation
What’s next?
Moving forward, we're excited to launch our Mentorship Program, where startups will be paired with mentors from diverse backgrounds based on their specific needs. This time, we're extending the Mentorship Program network to not only this year’s cohort but also welcoming alumni cohorts in need of further guidance.
If you're building a startup and interested in joining the mentorship program, please reach out to us at startups@igem.org
Interested in joining VCL 2025? Sign up to our mailing list and stay informed! don't miss out on registration for next year's event -
We eagerly anticipate witnessing the continued success of these ventures as they embark on their entrepreneurial journeys and look forward to welcoming them back live at iGEM Grand Jamboree 2024 this October.
For stakeholders and VCs interested in seeing them live, secure your ticket now and we'll see you there!
