Washington, DC – (July 13, 2018) – The Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) today announced winners of the Start-up Stadium competition held last month at the BIO International Convention in Boston. During six sessions over four days, live presentations of 50 finalists were evaluated by expert judges with entrepreneurial, investment, start-up, economic development, capital formation, and academic backgrounds from both the public and private sectors. One winner was chosen for each session. The finalists, whose purpose is to develop cutting-edge technologies and therapeutic solutions while becoming commercially viable, hailed from nine different countries and 15 U.S. states.
The winners are:
Strand Therapeutics (Massachusetts) Session 1
Lauren Sciences LLC (New York) Session 2
Monarch Biosciences, Inc. (California) Session 3
OcuMedics, Inc. (Virginia) Session 4
Lumme Inc. (Massachusetts) Session 5
Deep Health (Massachusetts) Session 6
“The benefits of participating in the Start-up Stadium competition go beyond winning a contest,” said Nareq Sagherian, BIO’s Director of Investor Relations & Programming. “According to our surveys, even the companies that don’t win have been approached by investors who were either judges or audience participants listening to their presentation. These are opportunities that participating companies may not have otherwise and we are pleased with the enormous success of this interactive experience.”
Winning companies receive a one-year membership in BIO, a one-hour advisory discussion with a venture capital firm (F-Prime Capital or Sands Capital Ventures) and will be fast-tracked to the final judging round for the 2019 MassChallenge (industry agnostic accelerator) or PULSE@MassChallenge (digital health lab) programs.
A full list of 2018 participants and judges can be found here.