On November 26th, the eight participants of this years’ Health2B – SmiLes’ business program for very early startups – graduated after successfully having completed a 10-week digital training program. During the Demo Day their company pitches were praised by a panel consisting of investors in an ‘Investor Pitch Forum’.
The 6th round of the Health2B life science business accelerator was run with a digital set-up, allowing participants to attend from any location and device.
Seven of the eight participating companies or projects have female founders.
During the 10-week program, the entrepreneurs attended 130 coaching sessions and worked on verifying their business idea with access to mentors, industry experts and personalized coaching from the SmiLe community.
Having mastered the digital experience – amongst other things, the teams were able to create connections with each other and the mentors, as well as share valuable peer knowledge and support each other online – the start-ups have shown an impressive progress in such a short time.
During the Demo Day, they impressed the panel of investors with their pitches and received engaging feedback on their presentations. The panel consisted of venture capital companies Almi Invest and SynCapital as well as angel investors.
In order to further reward the companies for the great progress, this year SmiLe decided to surprise three of the graduates with a SmiLe Core Values Award (core value – company): Impact Award – Phystec, Professional Award – Acorai, Friendly & inclusive – Pharmista
Each of these companies was rewarded with 20 000 SEK as well as an additional three months of support at SmiLe Incubator.
“I want to congratulate our eight Health2B graduates on successfully completing this years’ program. I am impressed by how well the start-ups were able to master our new, completely digital program set-up and interact with each other and the mentors online. The fact that the investor panel praised their Demo Day pitches and the phenomenal progress they have made in only 10 weeks tells us that our program really works”, says Ebba Fåhraeus, CEO of SmiLe.
The following companies participated in the 6th Health2B business accelerator:
Pharmista – Reusable pregnancy test, Alicia Mattson, Sweden
Noui – Wearable bladder scan, Kyoko Jansson, Sweden
Phystec – Digital physiotherapy, Joakim Sjollin, Sweden
Diasense – Blood sugar monitor, Marziyeh Advand, Sweden
Friska – Metabolic Syndrome treatment, Camilla Ahlgren, Sweden
TrackPaw – Rodent monitoring in R&D, Liza Tchpanova, Sweden
Acorai – Intracardiac pressure monitoring, Filip Peters, Sweden
MinthBio – Narcolepsy treatment, Marie Krone, Sweden
For more information: Ebba Fåhraeus, +46 (0)734000433, ebba@smileincubator.life
SmiLe Incubator is a life science business incubator based in Medicon Village in Lund. SmiLe helps entrepreneurs to commercialize their ideas. There are currently 25 companies in SmiLe, which together with alumni companies, have attracted more than EUR 280 million in venture capital to date since 2014. SmiLe offers business coaching, a large network of contacts and a dynamic community, as well as well-equipped laboratories which is unique of its kind in Sweden. SmiLe is a non-profit organization and receives basic funding from Region Skåne, Lund Municipality, Lund University and Medicon Village. SmiLe´s sponsors are Agilent, Sparbanken Skåne, Awa, Høiberg, Prevas, Setterwalls, Zacco, Aqilion. SmiLe’s listed alumni companies have a market capitalization of almost EUR 750 million (Q4 2019). www.smileincubator.life