Aleph Farms
Year: 2017
Country: Israel
Founders: Didier Toubia and Shulamit Levenberg
Category: Food technology, 3D printing
1 May 2026
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It aims to change the traditional way of producing meat by creating a sustainable alternative. The start-up is printing three dimensional beef by replicating cow cells. Aleph uses a technology whereby four types of meat cells — muscle fiber, fat, connective tissue and blood vessels — are used to create a complex 3D model of beef. It is adding on to the ‘clean meat’ revolution by reducing the environmental footprint of beef production. The artificial meat tastes and feels very much like actual beef.
Axiom Space
Year: 2015
Country: United States
Founder: Michael Suffredini
Category: Aerospace
The Houston-based Axiom is looking to develop a private space station that will commence operations as soon as the International Space Station (ISS) retires in 2024. The start-up is building its first module, which will be attached to the ISS by 2020. It will detach itself once the international laboratory shuts. Unlike the ISS, this will cater to astronauts, researchers, scientists, entrepreneurs and tourists alike. It will encourage in-orbit research and commercial testing of new technologies by private companies, and promote space tourism. However, its main revenue will be from countries that wish to send their astronauts to space. Other forms of revenue will be exploration support, scientific research, manufacturing and sponsorships. Revenue generation is estimated to be about $37 billion by 2030.
Blue Frog Robotics
Year: 2014
Country: France
Founders: Rodolphe Hasselvander and Franck De Visme
Category: Robotics, artificial intelligence
The Paris-based start-up has developed ‘BUDDY’, a mobile, sociable and emotionally intelligent robot designed to be a family’s companion. It weighs about 5 kg, costs $749 and has a battery that lasts for about eight to 10 hours. Its platform allows the developer community to distribute Android applications through the BUDDY Store. The start-up aims to design and develop robots that help people enhance the quality of their lives. The robots will be controlled via a mobile phone and have sensors that can detect visitors, act as a smart home device or allow children to learn through games. It will also help the elderly through features such as fall detection, medical reminders and act as a family calendar.
BlueRock Therapeutics
Year: 2016
Country: Canada
Founders: Gordon Keller and Lorenz Studer
Category: Biotechnology
The start-up, which raised $225 million in Series A financing by Bayer and Versant Ventures, uses biomolecular technology to replace dead, damaged and dysfunctional cells in patients with degenerative diseases. The platform is based on induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which can be generated from cells and produced in large quantities. This technology of regenerating stem cells aims to help patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease as well as cardiovascular diseases. Due to the fact that 10 million people are affected by Parkinson’s each year and that cardiac failure is a leading cause of death, success in this platform will prove to be a major development in the healthcare segment.
Eviation Aircraft
Year: 2016
Country: Israel
Founders: Aviv Tzidon, Dekel Tzidon, Michael Ilan, Omer Bar-Yohay
Category: Aerospace
Eviation aims to make air travel eco-friendly, regional, and more importantly, cheaper with its Alice Commuter. It is developing electrical drones, all set to launch in 2021, to carry up to nine passengers and travel at a speed of about 450 km/hr between charges. It uses Kokam batteries that can help it stay in the air for about 21 hours with a charging time of 10 minutes. It promises to have lower operating and maintenance costs than traditional aircraft.
Freenome
Year: 2015
Country: United States
Founders: Gabriel Otte and Riley Ennis
Category: Biotechnology, machine learning
Freenome is dedicated to detecting cancer in its earliest stages using machine learning algorithms. The founders have devised a way to detect cancer symptoms. The process is essentially like that of a blood test, but instead of testing sugar level and cholesterol, the machine is used for diagnosing symptoms that can lead to cancer. The test concentrates on ‘circulating tumor DNA’, which means bits of DNA that are released when tumor cells die in the blood. The start-up is looking to expand its technology to look at specific types of cancer in the human body, thereby making its technology more accurate and intensive.
Lilium Aviation
Year: 2015
Country: Germany
Founders: Daniel Wiegand, Matthias Meiner, Patrick Nathen and Sebastian Born
Category: Aviation, electronics
The Lilium Jet claims to be the world’s first electric, autonomous, vertical take-off and landing jet. This five-seater jet has a range of 300 km and the start-up has created a network of inexpensive landing pads in cities. Lilium offers an on-demand service that makes it possible to fly to any location in the city, like a cab service. It aims at making cities jet-friendly and air travel a part of daily life. This air taxi claims to reduce vehicle traffic on roads and also reduce pollution as the jet does not emit carbon dioxide. Its vertical landing technology makes landing and take off safe and easy.
OneOme
Year: 2014
Country: United States
Founders: Invenshure and Mayo Clinic
Category: Biotechnology, pharmaceuticals
The start-up has devised a comprehensive test, RightMed, that analyses a patient’s DNA via a multi-gene algorithm to predict how his/her body would react to a wide range of medicines. The company is aiming to provide cost-effective pharmacogenomic solutions. The technology can provide personalised prescriptions for patients, ensuring that it does not induce hypersensitivity, hypertoxicity and cutaneous reactions. The test covers 27 genes and over 350 medications, which can effectively treat more than 30 medical conditions at a price of $249. It raised $5.24 million in 2016 in new financing and wants to make pharmacogenomics accessible and routine.
Opus 12
Year: 2015
Country: United States
Founders: Etosha Cave, Kendra Kuhl and Nicholas Flanders
Category: Healthcare, environmental consulting
This clean-energy start-up aims to convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into a profitable and clean resource. Its reactors use a technology that performs photosynthesis on an industrial scale. The technology uses water, CO2 and electricity (instead of the renewable power used by plants) to convert CO2 into higher energy carbon-based products and a co-product of oxygen. Using a metal catalyst, it converts CO2 into methane and ethanol, which can be converted into fuel, recycles the harmful gas and prevents it from being released into the atmosphere. The devices are palm-sized cube structures that can convert CO2 into 16 different products and has the conversion power of over 37,000 trees. The start-up is working on larger versions of the device as well.
PAIGE
Year: 2018
Country: United States
Founders: David Klimstra and Thomas Fuchs
Category: Artificial intelligence, Healthcare
Pathology Artificial Intelligence Guidance Engine (PAIGE) aims to sort slides after biopsy to detect cancer symptoms. After being tutored by a pathologist, the system uses AI to sort pathological slides that have anomalies from the normal ones. This will save time for the pathologist, who can concentrate on analysing the slides. The start-up also aims to create a database of the slides so that they can be referred to when needed. Hence, if a slide is similar to previous slides, the life cycle of that person, the impact of the disease and the effective procedures can be predicted instantly. For this, PAIGE has tied up with Memorial Sloan Kettering Center, which will provide it access to 25 million slides and the Cancer Center’s intellectual property on computing pathology for the next eight years. The start-up raised $25 million in a Series A round led by Bayer Capital in February.
Roader
Year: 2015
Country: Netherlands
Founders: Joost Godee and Sjoerd PitstraCategory: Artificial intelligence, machine learning
Roader is a camera that allows one to capture important moments in our lives. It is a wearable and hands-free camera, which can capture 10 seconds of past footage along with 10 seconds of present footage, producing 20 seconds of video. The camera is dubbed as ‘time-machine camera’ and the main idea behind it was to never miss any important moment in our life. The camera can be linked to an Android or iOS phone through Bluetooth, following which, the recorded video is directly sent to the phone in low resolution. However, this video turns into high resolution once the video is saved.
SenseTime
Year: 2014
Country: China
Founders: Xiaolan Xu, Xiaoou Tang and Xu Li
Category: Artificial intelligence, image recognition
The start-up, which was valued at more than $2 billion in 2017, uses computer vision and deep learning technologies to specialise in facial recognition for security and verification purposes and to prevent identity frauds. SenseTime’s technology is being utilised to provide text, vehicle, and image recognition to over 300 mobile Internet companies, financial services, and security companies. Its training database has about 2 billion faces and about 10 billion videos and images as of 2017. Backed by Alibaba, SenseTime is also supported by the government and has created a multi-billion dollar market in artificial intelligence. Apart from security and surveillance services, it also provides software products.
Zebra Medical Vision
Year: 2014
Country: Israel
Founders: Elad Benjamin, Eyal Gura and Eyal Toledano
Category: Healthcare, artificial intelligence
It aims to simplify disease detection for any medical field — from dermatology to digital pathology — that involves image scans. It applies deep learning techniques to radiology and creates AI algorithms that can read medical images and detect diseases, thereby reducing the workload of radiologists. The technology scans the images to provide accurate diagnosis and finally detects anomalies. In 2016, the company showcased two new algorithms to predict and prevent cardiovascular anomalies, and in 2017, it partnered with Google to provide algorithms on Google Cloud and made the scans available for just $1 per scan. In the future, the start-up wants to develop software to detect breast and lung cancer.
Zero Mass Water
Year: 2014
Country: United States
Founder: Cody Friesen
Category: Environmental engineering
The start-up wants to make drinking water an unlimited source. It makes use of its hydropanels called ‘Source’ that use sunlight and air to make drinking water. The panels use a technology that absorbs moisture from the atmosphere, dehumidifies it, and drains the water out before purifying and adding minerals to it. Depending on the climatic condition of an area, these panels can generate upto five litres of potable water a day. The start-up, thus, claims to remove about 70,000 plastic bottles from circulation. The panels cost around $4,500 ($2,000 for two panels and $500 for installation). These panels have been installed in 12 countries including Chile, Lebanon, Mexico, Jordan, Peru, Ecuador, the United States and Philippines, and have contributed in improving the quality and availability of drinking water in these places.
Zipline
Year: 2016
Country: United States
Founders: Keller Rinaudo, Keenan Wyrobek, Peter Seid, William Hetzler and Phu Nguyen
Category: Drone, robotics
Zipline was launched in 2011 to manufacture delivery drones. It was in 2016 that it started using drones to deliver medicines in Rwanda. It delivers blood products to 21 transfusing systems to places inaccessible by other means of transportation using Zip, a small robot airplane designed for a high level of safety. Zipline’s long-term mission is to build instant delivery worldwide, allowing on-demand delivery of medicines and other products at low cost without using a drop of gasoline. It is expanding in Tanzania and the United States. It also developed the fastest delivery drone in April 2018 — an autonomous, fixed-wing device that has a top speed of 121 km/hr. The drone can fly 160 km in a round trip and can carry 1.75 kg of cargo.
