Russian and Portuguese startups at MassChallenge (May 2012)

May 11, visited the MassChallenge in Boston at the presentation of Russian and Portuguese startups. Who does not know - MassChallenge is such a “greenhouse” for startups, helping young companies to find sponsors, providing a temporary place to work and some other support.

The event was called Russian and Portuguese Startups Demo Day . The main contingent on the part of Russia was from Moscow State University, Physical Engineering and Institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences, all young people are 22-25 years old, which pleased me very much. The overall impression is a very positive, the bulk of startups from the natural science field, aimed at pharmatek, biotech and medicine. Startups didn’t have great originality of ideas and all of them are based on ideas published quite a long time ago (at least 5-10 years), but the very material realization of these ideas is a vital problem that guys just want to solve, or decide, because most of them already have compact working prototypes. Almost all Russian guys spoke good English, which also made me happy. We looked on a par with Portuguese startups, very worthy, but I got the impression that our guys limped over the protection of intellectual property of projects, we also won 100% of the participants' ages, because almost all Portuguese startups were represented by people over 30.

All startups, both Russian and Portuguese can be divided into the following groups
1. Medical diagnostics
2. Biotech
3. Energy Saving
4. Web services
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My main specialization is computer-based drug development, a university degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry, so all startups from the Facebook clone series and other web2.3-0 bacchanalia cause little emotion in me. All comments and conclusions about startups are my personal, are not the last resort.

Who is interested in reading about each startup I ask further ...

Maxygen

A tool for determining patient infectious diseases for “$ 10 and 10 minutes”. It is claimed that the device will be compact, and they will sell cartridges specific for infections and other diseases. They also plan to aim a blow at finding the perfect pair in terms of genetic information. To do this, they use complex “genetic signatures”, there is a working prototype, but how many infectious diseases they can already determine I was not clear.
Comment : with microbes everything is more or less clear - they can find unique genetic information, although the problem of noise from natural microbes for humans will be large. As far as I understand, the guys have no patents yet, and this is a big problem for them, because They can win the Russian market, but there will be problems in the field of intellectual property with the West, because This technique is not original. Guys should pay attention to the fact that their name is a clone of a rather old company.

PS: compact diagnostic devices - a new direction in medicine, usually represent a small station size, not more than a box of shoes, into which a sample is inserted (blood, scraping, etc.) and a cartridge on which special antibodies are applied, or unique genetic information being a characteristic signature for a disease, or any other medical condition. Behind this is not the most modern science, but the issue of cheap and compact implementation is very acute.

Future mother

... from Russia. Web service for expectant mothers, a sort of convenient encyclopedia with a rather incomprehensible binding to real doctors, as a means of monetization.
Comment : A typical highly specialized site, whether or not it shoots will depend on how aggressively it is promoted.

Dr. Gene

A web service that helps deciphering genetic information to ordinary people in simple language. We come - we load the genome - we receive simple recommendations to go to doctors. Also want to create a social genetic network.
Commentary : the idea is excellent, but it is still very early - there is no market in Russia, neither people nor doctors are ready. Especially the problem with the latter, if a person has money for a private clinic - then there will be a professional doctor who can interpret genetic information, ordinary patients do not have such a possibility. Although with the constantly decreasing cost of sequencing of the genome, this idea will fire, but after 10-15 years in Russia, and after 5 years in the west, although there already are competitors - 23andme , genetree , etc.

Pharmacocytes

There is the following problem in the pharmaceutical industry - the delivery of drugs to the right organ. The idea of ​​a startup: using the patented technology, they “pump up” red blood cells with a rather toxic anti-cancer drug (they get pharmacocytes), which significantly reduces its toxicity. Instead of anti-cancer drugs, of course, you can use any other.
Comment : a beautiful idea, the implementation itself is not completely clear to me, and it seems that the idea is not new at all. There is also the question of the toxicity of this method for the spleen - the main organ that destroys waste blood cells. Drug development, and pharmacocytes are drugs, is a multifaceted problem, because it is necessary to undergo rather complex clinical trials.

Imslide

Early detection of leukemia in children based on genetic information and the shape of blood cells. They promise a compact and convenient device, will continue to promote the development of the diagnosis of other diseases. The device works on replaceable cartridges.
Comment : the approach is interesting, but not original. On the Russian market can shoot, on the international will meet great competition and problems with intellectual property.

Lactacore

these guys were surprised by their statements. Briefly: during bottle-feeding in children, mental abnormalities are observed, which are caused by the absence of a specific neuropeptide. If you add this peptide in artificial milk formula - then the child grows calm and mentally normal.
Comment : the idea is very controversial. Peptides are hell for drug development. They are very bad, if not to say that they are generally absorbed in the stomach, and difficult to patent. And if you carry out this development as a functional diet - it is still necessary to conduct clinical studies, and it is long and expensive.

Picoscope

very best guys, and the idea is good, and interesting implementation. The following problem exists: to determine the biological activity of substances or protein-protein interactions, different labels are used - these are either fluorescent proteins or the introduction of radiolabels, both options are common, but rather difficult to implement, and for some systems it is simply impossible to implement them. Nowadays, methods for determining interactions and activities of substances without labels (label free screening) are becoming popular, this startup is trying to win back a piece of the market with the help of original technology developed at the Institute of General Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Comment : great luck guys! The unmarked screening market has been booming in the past few years.

Portuguese startups

all_desk

Portuguese web service for renting rooms for meetings and trainings. For example, the company has such an empty building, it is registered and rents it to those in need. all_desk - provides the base and search tools, and receives a percentage of sales.
Comment : An interesting solution, but quite a few competitors - regus, kodesk, loosecubes, rent-a-desk.

alphaSIP

An interesting approach to the definition of diseases based on the binding of antibodies that are on a nanotube substrate. Huge patent pool - 200 patents. There is a ready-made working sample, but so far cartridges are only for determining two diseases.
Comment : serious guys.

MetaBlue

A compact device, no more than a cell phone, for detecting infectious diseases of the ear. The algorithm of operation is simple - determining the change in color of the ear discharge, since for each infection it is special.
Comment : for parents, the device is useful, because allows you to determine whether to go to the doctor or not.

Mediaomics

The most muddy report throughout the meeting, but the idea is very, very useful. The essence - the development of special modified microbes that produce proteins, as well as a special environment for their cultivation. They showed an increase in productivity compared to standard methods by 2 times.
Comment : I think that the optimization of modern biotech methods is a commercially successful project.

Energy saving startups

Watt Solutions and GreenLamp. Unfortunately, for Russia, the issue of saving electricity is not as urgent as in Europe. Both startups have a similar idea - control of energy consumption with an intermediate device that reads consumption.

Musikiki

aggregator of information about the musical group. It seemed to me very convenient, but still beta.

PS: I noticed in “I am PR” to familiarize myself with modern startups in Russia, I myself am not a co-author of any of the presented developments.