25th round: Prototron funded 8 teams with a record 120,000 euros


Prototron #25 finals
A challenging year 2020 has put Estonians and Latvians invented – more than 500 ideas were submitted to Prototron. On 29th of January 2021, the winners of the Autumn 2020 round were announced – a record 120,000 euros were shared between 8 teams. So far Prototron has helped 86 technological solutions bought to market and invested more than one million euros in the implementation of smart ideas.

“Considering everything that is happening around us, I am very glad that we received so many great ideas. All the 12 teams that reached the finals and presented their solutions to the Expert Committee, had thoroughly thought through their ideas. These were tech-intense, saving the world and the teams differed by less than half a point in the final ranking. This is the mark of a consistently good level.
In addition, I would like to point out that more and more solutions are reaching funding which are based on deep technology and research. Although this means that the horizon of the future success story of these teams may be further than in the case of some simpler solution, Prototron writes itself into the book of Estonian history as smart and strong innovative country”, said Jana Budkovskaja, CEO of Prototron.

The winners of Prototron 2020 Autumn round:

Litegrav.AI – 20 000 euros. They are developing a small, incubator-fittable microgravity simulator aimed for basic research, which provides a novel control algorithm over existing solutions and compatible with a wide range of research instruments.
Raiku – 20 000 euros. Cheapest biodegradable alternative to plastic bubble wrap, that is made out of wood industry’s waste. The team also got special-prize from coModule.
Cellboxlabs – 20 000 eurot. Team is developing organ-on-chip that mimics human intestine on small scale outside our body called gut on chip and cultivation instrument for these chips that allows pharmaceutical, food and cosmetic companies to test their products on microbiome more precise, effective and safer.
PurOceans – 15 000 euros. The world’s first ECO-Friendly CleanTech that harmlessly cleans up water body’s floor from oil and micro-plastic pollution and rehabilitates deep water’s wildlife.
Soft robotic cervix – 20 000 euros. They are giving birth to a robotic human body, starting from the cervix. The conceived robotic body looks and feels natural and enhances simulation training of healthcare students.
Neurosalience – 10 000 euros. The team will develop a tool for early detection of dementia from CT scans, which allows private healthcare companies to decrease patient-related costs and improve the quality of life of their clients.
Solaride – 10 000 euros. An app containing an intelligent information system algorithm that can be integrated to your cars software that predicts energy consumption of electric vehicles through processing big data.
Parcelsea – 5 000 euros special-prize from Samsung. A smart mailbox, which let couriers deliver packages in a secure and contact-free way.

In cooperation with Fundwise the most successful crowdfunding campaign at Prototron&Fundwise platform was done by ZenFlower, who raised 1,889 eurot.

All the teams were wonderful! The only thing we were upset about is that we never really met the teams. But looking at the results of this round we hopefully see the teams very soon!

Prototron is baked by Swedbank Estonia, TalTechi, Tallinn Science Park Tehnopol, Tartu University, Tallinn city, BuildIT, Swedbank Latvia, LMT, Samsung, Hedman Partners, Fundwise, Harju Elekter, Startup Estonia, Veebimajutus.ee, Amazon Web Services, coModule, Microsoft ja Avokaado.

So far Prototron has funded 86 teams with 1,05 million euros, teams have raised 34 million euros. In 2020 Prototron became an Estonian-Latvian fund and due the COVID-19 both rounds were held in e-channels.