DTU distinguished itself at the Venture Cup National Startup Competition 2018. Medical equipment for treatment of chronic wounds was the big winner of the competition.
DTU participated in 14 out of the 20 teams competing in the Venture Cup National Startup Competition 2018, which ended with a big show held at the premises of the Danish Society of Engineers (IDA) on 22 June. And DTU entrepreneurs clinched the first places in four out of five categories when the competition was over.
The big winner was the startup VulCur MedTech with students from DTU and University of Copenhagen (UCPH). They won both the HealthTech category and EUR 2,700 (DKK 20,000) as well as the main prize of EUR 13,500 (DKK 100,000) for their medical equipment for treatment of chronic wounds.
The award was presented by Minister for Higher Education and Science Tommy Ahlers.
“The prizes are a stamp of approval of our work and may pave the way for us to find partners and apply for funding. The prizes can thus hopefully help us towards reaching our goal of becoming one of the leaders in the treatment of chronic wounds,” says Steen Millinder, who is studying Physics and Nanotechnology at DTU.
He received the prizes together with the rest of the team: Janus Beierholm, who have studied Biochemistry at UCPH, Tais Stangerup, who is studying Medicine at UCPH, and Rasmus Tue Nielsen, who is also studying Physics and Nanotechnology at DTU.
Hoping to halve healing time
VulCur MedTech is a startup for the development of medical equipment with the focus on wound healing by means of a new combination of existing technologies. A chronic wound is defined as a wound that does not heal within three months.
These wounds are very painful and constitute a significant economic burden for the healthcare system.
While the competitors are focusing on surface-treating wounds, VulCur MedTech treats the wound with indepth cleaning—from the inside and out. This is done using a laser source which generates a number of energy bubbles inside the tissue. This treatment method kills the bacteria, but protects the cells. The objective is to halve the healing time and avoid half of the amputations performed today.
Got the idea from his daughter
“It all began when my daughter was on the floor one day messing about with bicycle lamps. When you hold a lamp in your hand, you can see the structures in the tissue. This gave us the idea to control the light in a smart way. After having read loads of articles, we submitted a patent in May last year. We had our business plan ready last autumn,” says Janus Beierholm.
The winners each received EUR 2,700 (DKK 20,000).
Product & Devices
Inniti from DTU and Aalborg University won the category with a new set of tools for researchers in the process industry which makes it possible to automate manual work.
NextGen Logistics
Lynx Sight from DTU won the category with a visual tool for inspection at a third of the market price.
HealthTech
VulCur MedTech from DTU and UCPH won the category with their medical equipment for treatment of chronic wounds.
GreenTech
Viridian Bio from DTU won the category with a fermentation-based production of plant-derived molecules.
Service Innovation
Swap Language from Aarhus University won the category with a peer-to-peer platform offering personal 1-to-1 language learning from natives.
See the finalists:
Learn more about all the finalists
here.