Four winners caught on the 2022 Innovation Radar
Since 2015, the annual Innovation Radar Prize has been awarded to cutting-edge EU-funded innovations with promising market potential. Now co-organised by the European Commission and Dealflow.eu as part of the EU-backed INVEST project, the 2022 Innovation Radar Prize has been awarded in three additional categories besides the overall Grand Prix winner: ‘Green & Purpose-driven’, ‘Disruptive Health’ and ‘Kickstarter’. The winners were chosen out of 12 finalists, which the Innovation Radar and Dealflow.eu committees selected from over 300 applicants and submitted for open voting to all citizens. The finalists pitched their innovations before a jury panel of investors and entrepreneurs at an online event held on 15 November. The overall winner of the 2022 Innovation Radar Prize was NVision Imaging Technologies, Germany. The quantum tech company “has developed a hyperpolarisation platform which enhances the MRI signal of natural metabolites, enabling these safe molecules to be used as agents for imaging tumour metabolism via standard MRIs,” according to a press release posted on the Dealflow.eu website. “This safe imaging technology will provide oncologists unprecedented early insights into treatment efficacy at the metabolic level, allowing non-responders to be moved onto another line of therapy more quickly.” The innovation was supported through the EU-funded MetaboliQs project.
The categories
The ‘Green & Purpose-driven’ category prize was awarded in recognition of an innovation that strives for a more environmentally sustainable future. The winner is Svelte based from Romania. The company designs and manufactures innovative solutions for topologically optimised construction elements and freeform architectural surfaces 40 times faster than current methods. Architecturally, this technology can slash building design costs by up to 60 %, “while in construction,” the press release notes, “it can improve the weight-to-height ratio of buildings by 40%, generating lighter structures by eliminating excess materials that do not have a structural purpose.” EU funding for this innovation was provided through the Svelte project. The ‘Disruptive Health’ category prize for innovations in the life sciences and medical fields went to Innovation Sprint, Belgium, for its certified clinical solution Healthentia. The solution comes in the form of a smartphone app for patients and a clinical dashboard for clinicians. As reported in the press release, “Healthentia supports care plans and digital pathways that outperform traditional treatments, with recorded technical & clinical evidence,” and it has the potential “to disrupt healthcare with a significant impact on patients’ health and health economics.” The solution was enriched with innovative features and clinical studies through several EU-funded projects, including iHELP, RE-SAMPLE, TERMINET, INFINITECH and BEAMER. The winner of the ‘Kickstarter’ category awarded to high-potential innovations still in the early stage of development was the Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain. The institution was awarded this prize for its thermophotovoltaic battery that “stores surplus renewable generation and produces combined heat and electricity on demand.” This inexpensive system can store large amounts of energy for long periods of time, “has high energy density, high global efficiency and uses abundant and low-cost materials.” EU funding for this innovation was received through the AMADEUS and NATHALIE projects. The INVEST (Matching investors and EU funded innovations) project, through which Dealflow.eu has co-organised this year’s Innovation Radar Prize, is helping innovations make it to market by closing the gap between investors and research projects. INVEST ends in 2025. For more information, please see: INVEST project
Keywords
INVEST, Innovation Radar, prize, innovation, investor
