Record number of start-ups applying to participate in the Tech4Eva accelerator

Press Release March 14, 2023: Building on the success of its first two years, Tech4Eva, a unique international accelerator in Switzerland, is now entering its third season. As a result of a collaboration between Groupe Mutuel and the EPFL Innovation Park, Tech4Eva has attracted 147 projects from 40 countries for 2023, an increase of 18.5% with respect to the second edition and 33.6% compared to the first edition. Like the second edition, 80% of start-ups were created by women. The kick-off of the 3rd edition will take place in Kaiseraugst near Basel, in collaboration with Roche.

Menstruation, mental health, and pregnancy are the most represented topics‍

For this third edition, a selection committee chose 21 start-ups from 147 applications from Switzerland and elsewhere in the world. 14 Swiss start-ups applied this year, and four were selected by the jury.

The three most represented topics among start-ups offering innovative solutions in women's health are:

1. Menstruation and sexual health: 22% of start-ups
2. Women's mental health and well-being: 18% of start-ups
3. Pregnancy and postpartum: 15% of start-ups

The solutions envisaged to respond to these challenges are numerous but focus on three major areas:

1. Mobile application: 18%.
2. Computer software: 16%.
3. Medical devices: 14%.

These figures clearly show that in women's health, too, digitalization is at the heart of the reflections. Moreover, two Swiss projects selected perfectly reflect this reality:

-      Adira active in pregnancy and well-being

Adira empowers pregnant women suffering from high blood pressure, measuring their vitals and assessing their physical and mental well-being to provide real-time, data-informed guidance through their blended maternity care pathway. Adira combines the power of AI with a personal perinatal coach to fight for healthy moms and stronger babies.

-      HEALTHY-LONGER GmbH active in mental health

HEALTHY-LONGER analyzes mental health symptoms together with the biochemical pathways of 21 essential neuro-biomarkers in dried urine probes for neuro-nutrient deficiencies. Based on this, they provide their clients with personalized, effective, and scientifically proven neuro-nutritional recommendations from foods available in most grocery shops.

Selected Swiss start-ups:

1.             AdiraHealth - www.adira-health.com

2.             WakeUpPelvic

3.             BEYOND GENOMiX - www.linkedin.com/company/beyond-genomix/

4.             HEALTHY-LONGER GmbH - https://healthy-longer.com

Selected International start-ups: Care Mother www.caremother.in; Egal Pads https://padsonaroll.com; Hale https://en.halecommunity.com/;  Hyivy Health www.hyivy.com; Intignus Biotech https://intignusbiotech.com; Luma Womb www.lumawomb.com; Malaica https://www.malaica.com; Manina Medtech https://maninamedtech.com/; MIMSolutions https://www.mim-solutions.ai/; Natal Cares https://www.natalcares.com; Neurora https://www.neuraura.com/looop; NuroKor Femtech https://www.mihna.co.uk/; Predilife https://www.predilife.com/; RuMedical www.rumedical.co.uk; Samphire Neuroscience samphireneuro.com; Selfcerve; The PalpaCo. www.palpa.cl

More info here: https://www.tech4eva.ch/startups

In 2023, 35+ mentors will be present from renowned companies such as Groupe Mutuel, Roche, CSEM, Embecta, Essity, Ferring, Merck, Philips, Procter & Gamble, and Terre des Hommes Foundation. Experts from these companies will support the start-ups in their development.

‍Promising new collaboration with Roche

Roche is collaborating for the first time with the Tech4Eva accelerator by hosting the launch event at its premises in Kaiseraugst near Basel. With this collaboration, Tech4Eva expands further in the German-speaking part of Switzerland and can count on a major healthcare player in Switzerland. Roche has a long history in the field and has been strongly committed to women's health and driving innovation to advance healthcare. In 2022, Roche launched its long-term initiative, XProject, which aims to identify and remove the most critical barriers so women can fully and equitably access healthcare.

This connection between Roche's XProject and Tech4Eva, initiated by the EPFL Innovation Park and Groupe Mutuel, will create great synergies to support start-ups active in advancing women's health.

‍Strengthen collaborations and synergies

This third edition of Tech4Eva is launched today, with a physical and virtual event bringing together several hundred people from the worlds of innovation, medicine, entrepreneurship, and business. This event highlights the importance of partnerships, collaboration, and the use of data to improve women's health. Valerie Hepp, Digital & Personalised Healthcare Partnering, and Luca La Porta, Product Line Lead Personalised Healthcare & Real-WorldData Ecosystems at Roche, will share their experiences. "Women's health has to be of key focus for all stakeholders across healthcare. We will only be able to achieve sustainable improvements in women's health by strengthening our collaborations and synergies with the entire ecosystem ", says Valerie Hepp.

WHO Innovation Hub Head Louise Agersnap will talk about how scaling innovations can accelerate the impact on public health. While the panel will discuss how to bring tech solutions forward and optimize prevention for cancer. Silja Chouquet, CCO of ARTIDIS, will talk about her company's journey to optimize cancer treatment. A disease, especially a breast and cervical cancer, which still causes a lot of suffering among women, while Dr. Hossam Hadhoud, Health System Partner at Roche, will present a collaboration case in the same sector. On this subject, Jérôme Mariéthoz, Director of Health and Individual Insurance at Groupe Mutuel, said: "We need to change mentalities and break the taboos. Today, too many subjects specific to women's health are still neglected by the players. A collective awareness must be raised."

In this context, the EPFL Innovation Park and Groupe Mutuel intend to encourage the development of start-ups whose objective is to improve response to the needs and specificities of women's health. With the support of third-party funding, a new Tech4Eva "Global South" cohort is being added this year to the main cohort to improve women's general health condition in emerging countries." We call for the contribution of NGOs, philanthropic foundations, and impact funds to join the Tech4Eva cause in order to encourage local entrepreneurship and adopt new technologies developed in western countries to the needs of Global South regions," said Lan Zuo Gillet, Co-founder and Program Director of Tech4Eva. ‍

EPFL Innovation Park - GroupeMutuel, a win-win partnership

The selected start-ups will benefit from one of the best health ecosystems in Europe. They will have access to international collaborations and investors thanks to the extensive network of the EPFL Innovation Park. They will also have access to a dynamic market with one of the leading health insurance companies in Switzerland. The EPFL Innovation Park and Groupe Mutuel are pleased to continue this collaboration to improve women's health.

For more information on Tech4Eva: www.tech4eva.ch