BioInnovation Institute

First BII startup to receive a grant from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation We are pleased to share that the company Rapidemic, developing molecular point-of-care tests for fast and accurate diagnosis of sexually transmitted infections, has just received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation through its ‘Grand Challenges’ partnership network. This network is a family of initiatives fostering innovation to solve key global health and development problems.🌍 The grant allows Rapidemic to initiate a collaboration in South Africa to develop a prototype for a molecular test for rapid multiplex diagnosis of chlamydia and gonorrhea while determining the requirements for its deployment in South African primary care settings to serve hard-to-reach populations.🏥 According to Violette Defourt, CEO of Rapidemic, BII played a vital role in facilitating contact with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as part of BII’s strong ties with the Foundation since receiving a grant in 2022 to enhance scouting efforts, ecosystem building, and awareness raising to accelerate innovations in women’s health. “BII has been essential in maintaining a strong connection to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. They also helped us refine our case and highlight the impact our technology can have on global women's health. This connection was fundamental to achieving this milestone and launching this highly impactful collaboration," she says. 💡You can read more about the grant here: https://bit.ly/4f2NDxz Sander de Vos Aman U. Sara Foreman Haarika Bhamidipati Alex van Belkum Mauro Pojmaevich Sneha Sarmukadam Nivedha Varadharajan Karina Stampfl Job van der Hoeven Mohammed Majam Ezintsha Research Centre Johanna Roostalu Cathrine Nygaard Christensen Trine Bartholdy Sanne Brun Jensen Tony Cheng-Fu Chang Angela Ibler Sidsel Damsgaard Thomsen Andrew Julius Bende Tamar Szeps-Znaider Amelie Sophie Lohse Anders Østerby Mønsted Katrine Villarreal Villumsen #womenshealth #innovation

We are excited to support and host the first FoodHack Meetup in Copenhagen.🌱 Join us at BII on 14 November to hear from FoodTech experts about "FoodTech Funding: Opportunities and Challenges". 💡 We’ll be joined by founders and investors including Anja Leissner, Aviaja Riemann-Andersen, Bodil Sidén and Eric-Alan Rapp who will share their experience and insights with us. Plus: you’ll meet and network with your local FoodTech scene and taste delicious treats from local startups!🍽 Make sure to reserve your spot here (registration is free, but spots are limited!): https://lu.ma/d1qfclmg FoodHack Copenhagen Christian Brix Tillegreen Julie Riisgaard Cordes Maria Henriques de Jesus Petar Todorov Arnoud Klokke Benjamin Hamelmann Taylor Cooney DI Bio Alliance for Biosolutions Cecilia Trägårdh Coline Jeannet Anders Østerby Mønsted Tina Chanruk Larsen Lea Kynde Katrine Villarreal Villumsen Tine Roland Presterud #foodtech #foodhack #foodhackcopenhagen #innovation #food #agtech

What does the future hold for innovation in women's health?🔮💜   This was the key question discussed yesterday, when we hosted BII’s Women's Health Innovation Panel of investors, academics, and industry representatives. The panel also met with several BII start-ups and projects, who took the opportunity to gain valuable insights on their development journey. This group of leading experts has been instrumental in advising BII on women’s health strategy, helping assess applications and enhancing BII’s efforts to find and better support projects developing solutions for women's health, reproductive health and conditions that affect women differently or disproportionately. The conclusion? There is so much innovation potential - from menopause to preterm birth and pre-eclampsia or neurological indications - just to name a few. We must work together to move the needle forward in the field! With 15 projects and start-ups in women's health portfolio, BII is committed to help bring new products to an untapped market addressing significant unmet needs.🫴   Diana Torgersen Organon Hilary Critchley The University of Edinburgh Kelle Moley Ferring Pharmaceuticals Pam Garside Cambridge Angels University of Cambridge Mary Kerr NeRRe Therapeutics Ltd Chandra P. Leo Artemis Women's Health Foundation Aris Papageorghiou University of Oxford Trine Bartholdy Jens Nielsen Johanna Roostalu Cathrine Nygaard Christensen Sanne Brun Jensen Angela Ibler Sidsel Damsgaard Thomsen OvartiX Pharmista Technologies oasicare dawn-bio Rapidemic

Paving the Way for a Greener Future🍄🛣️ At BII, we are supporting early-stage innovation for a long-lasting impact. By offering funding, expertise, infrastructure, and access to a vast investor network through our programs, we enable founders and start-ups to accelerate the process of bringing their solutions to market, benefiting planetary health, human health, and societal resilience. This vision is also reflected—quite literally—in Visibuilt's work. On Monday, the start-up announced a significant milestone: the successful completion of a feasibility test in collaboration with NCC at the The Fehmarnbelt Project. They tested their fermentation-based binder, visiBIT, which offers a lower-energy alternative to traditional fossil fuel-based bitumen. Asphalt bound with visiBIT instead of bitumen could potentially reduce energy consumption and lower CO2 emissions in production by over 80%, eliminate the industry's dependence on fossil fuels, and contribute to a better working environment. Having joined BII's Venture Lab program in early 2023, it's exciting to see Visibuilt achieving real-world field tests with its product so early in its development.🏗️ Watch their 'Taking the Leap'-video below to learn more about how Visibuilt is reshaping the future of infrastructure with their mycelium-based asphalt binder.🌱 Jens Nielsen Trine Bartholdy Bobby Soni Christian Brix Tillegreen Maria Henriques de Jesus Arnoud Klokke Julie Riisgaard Cordes Benjamin Hamelmann Line Kloster Pedersen Kresten Kloch Max van 't Hof Cecilie Håkansson Oleksii Rebrov Anna Guitó Vilardell Caroline Thyssen Petersen DI Bio Alliance for Biosolutions Anders Østerby Mønsted

Protein is a crucial driver for business growth in the global food industry, and protein nutrition is also a key challenge for global health. 🥑🥕 Thus, we are pleased to share that we have strengthened our ties further with Innovation Institute for Food & Health, UC Davis, one of the world’s leading institutions in pioneering new solutions to develop more nutritious foods and fight global hunger. Our Director of Planetary Health, Christian Brix Tillegreen, gave the keynote speech at IIFH’s Partner Summit last week and emphasized the potential of joining forces.🌏 “UC Davis is world-renowned for its food- and agriculture-focused research, and IIFH is an ideal fit with BII as a collaborator focused on creating and accelerating new scientific-based startups making food healthier for people and the planet. Thus, we are excited to be in the final stages of agreeing to our first projects with IIFH to enable entrepreneurs and startups passionate about human and planetary health, including better protein nutrition.” Stay tuned for more exciting updates!🚀 Read more on University of California, Davis' website: https://bit.ly/3NsEhio Dr. Harold Schmitz Marissa Pickard The March Group Trine Bartholdy Jens Nielsen Markus Herrgård Bobby Soni Tamar Szeps-Znaider Andrew Julius Bende Taylor Cooney Maria Henriques de Jesus Julie Riisgaard Cordes Arnoud Klokke Petar Todorov Benjamin Hamelmann Shivani Joshi, Ph.D. Yeti Foods Tue Rasmussen Jonathan Dahlin Digestiva Justin Siegel Matr Foods Randi Wahlsten Katrine Villarreal Villumsen Anders Østerby Mønsted James Nash #foodtech #agtech #nutrition #innovation #collaboration #foodscience

Looking back on Venture Lab: Loma Therapeutics👀 Since we have opened our Venture Lab call once again, we want to share with you the reflections and learnings of the participating start-ups. Who better to enlist than our latest Venture House cohort, which has completed the Venture Lab program and is now embarking on our 18-month program designed to support product innovation and ecosystem growth, help projects mature, and attract further funding? First up is Loma Therapeutics, a start-up dedicated to transforming cancer treatment by developing a cutting-edge therapeutic vaccine that effectively targets HPV cancers, prevents relapse, and reduces treatment-related complications.💉🩺 💡You can scroll through the photos to read Loma’s reflections. Ditte Boilesen Stephanie Holstein-Rønsbo Lasse Nørregaard Martin Wiinberg Bardenfleth Caroline de Blanck Diego R. Lea Fendler Jens Nielsen Trine Bartholdy Bobby Soni Sanne Brun Jensen Umar Adegoke Matthias Wulf Johanna Roostalu Antonia Zoric Tina Chanruk Larsen, Anders Østerby Mønsted, Katrine Villarreal Villumsen, Lea Kynde, Sigrid Hyldig, Tine Roland Presterud #innovation #lifescience #biotech #funding #entrepreneurship

An Investor's Perspective on Valuing Start-up Companies 🤑 We’re excited to invite you to our next Talks at the Square event. On October 28, we will welcome Karen Firestone, Executive Chairman and co-founder of Aureus Asset Management, for a keynote titled, “An Investor’s Perspective on Valuing Start-up Companies”.  In her talk, Karen will explore the factors driving investment decisions and the broader implications for start-ups today. Following the keynote, Karen and CEO of BII Jens Nielsen will engage in a fireside talk offering an opportunity for the audience to ask questions. The event rounds off with a networking session. You can sign up for Karen’s talk here: https://bit.ly/3YdLSri Will we see you there?🫵 Trine Bartholdy Bobby Soni Københavns Universitet - University of Copenhagen Copenhagen Business School DTU - Technical University of Denmark KU Lighthouse‎ DTU Skylab The Kitchen - AU Erhverv og Innovation Tina Chanruk Larsen, Tine Roland Presterud, Katrine Villarreal Villumsen, Anders Østerby Mønsted, Lea Kynde, Sigrid Hyldig #assetmanagement #venturecapital #funding #innovation #entrepreneurship

When risk-willing early-stage start-up support pays off 🌱 At BII, we support the world-class life science innovation that drives the development of impactful solutions within human health, planetary health, and societal resilience. Due to our unique position and framework, we can support start-ups with knowledge, network, and funding when needed in their ventures' early and uncertain beginnings. Supporting at the early stage helps to create a long-lasting impact. For every euro, BII gives to the start-ups across our programs, they, on average, raise around 6 euros in external funding. BII alumnus ALGIECEL – who took part in our Venture Lab program in 2022, is the newest example, as they just announced a financing round of DKK 50M led by West Hill Capital. This investment can help the company get one step closer to bringing its microalgae-based technology that uses captured CO2 and photosynthesis to produce omega-3 fatty acids fit for animal feed, food, dietary supplements, and cosmetics on the market. “BII’s Venture Lab program is not only about attacking early-stage capital. Of course, financing is important, but the rest of what the program offers: skilled people, a huge network, and the continued focus and support after the program are just as important. Being in the program, we are part of a joint mission and a great community,” says the CEO of Algiecel, Henrik Busch-Larsen. You can read more about Algiecel's investment here: https://bit.ly/4gY02UP Maria Henriques de Jesus Christian Brix Tillegreen Jens Nielsen, Bobby Soni, Trine Bartholdy Markus Herrgård Pui Ling Lau Petar Todorov Julie Riisgaard Cordes Arnoud Klokke Benjamin Hamelmann Export and Investment Fund of Denmark Sara Sande Danish Technological Institute Anne Lerche Sofie Carsten Nielsen Mikael Wraae Valsted DI Bio Alliance for Biosolutions European Biosolutions Coalition Susanne Palsten Buchardt Jesper Svarer Ricardo Daura Tina Moe Martin Lavesen Jeppe Høier Merete Lundbye Møller Anders Østerby Mønsted Katrine Villarreal Villumsen

We want to extend a big congratulations to Professor David Baker, who was just announced as the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 winner!🏅 He received the prize for his groundbreaking and long-term dedication to developing and applying protein design software to create molecules that solve challenges in medicine, technology, and sustainability. His recent work has included developing powerful machine-learning methods for generating functional proteins.👏 The methods pioneered by David Baker and his laboratory at the Institute for Protein Design, University of Washington to create a new class of therapeutic proteins to modulate cell signaling is the foundation for the company creation project, Modulate, that has been part of BII’s Bio Studio program since December 2022. “On behalf of our whole community at BII, I would like to congratulate David Baker on being recognized with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his long-standing scientific contributions. We are proud of working with his talented team through our Bio Studio program, and it shows we have created a company creation program that can attract absolute world-class scientists,” says Jens Nielsen, CEO of BioInnovation Institute. We can’t wait to see what the future holds for the Modulate project. Stay tuned! 🤲 You can read the official announcement text here: https://bit.ly/481FYwF Read more about the Modulate project here: https://bit.ly/3KF3IMQ Christoffer Norn, Lance Stewart, Federica Dimitri David Feldman, Ulla Wahlers, Paula Rivera, Ana-Maria Bratovianu, Pia Peceli, Sofie Lorentzen, Trine Bartholdy, Markus Herrgård, Bobby Soni, Anne Steinø, Peter Hauge Wangsøe, Jakob Pallesen, Shivani Joshi, Ph.D., Taylor Cooney, Katja Brunner, Johanna Roostalu, Terhi Minkkinen, Iben Egebæk Nikolajsen, Heike Ross, Josefine Stagsted Fink, Joana Mulma Khorto, Katrine Villarreal Villumsen, Anders Østerby Mønsted

BII and Villum Foundation collaborate to spur innovation in Power-to-X⚡   We are pleased to announce a new collaboration with Villum Fonden to accelerate the translation of research in Power-to-X into innovation.🤝   In 2025 and 2026, the Villum Foundation will donate a total of DKK 20M to BII to support four promising Power-to-X start-ups from the 'Villum P2X Accelerator' at DTU - Technical University of Denmark. These four start-ups will join our Venture Lab program.🌱 Since 2018, our focus has mainly been on enabling and supporting innovation within life science, but we are confident that our platform can help advance start-ups in various fields, such as we have seen within quantum science with the inauguration of Deep Tech Lab - Quantum.👏 “For a long time, the Villum Foundation has made great strides to promote research and technological development in Power-to-X. So, they have a deep understanding and extensive knowledge of the research environments, the innovation ecosystem, and the potential of these technologies, which we look forward to benefiting from," says Jens Nielsen, CEO of BII.   The first start-ups are expected to join our next Venture Lab cohort.🚀 ➡ You can read more on BII's website here: https://bit.ly/3ZXF2Yo 🗞 More info in an article from Børsen here: https://bit.ly/4ezTbPE 📷 Photo credit: Esben Zøllner Olesen Lars Bo Nielsen Fredrik Skoglund Thomas Bjørnholm Jeanette Blom Anders Smith Marianne Thellersen Anders Overgaard Bjarklev Tine Hougaard Klitmøller Jesper Nielsen Peter Vesborg Katrine Damkjær Cathal J. Mahon Pui Ling Lau Markus Herrgård Bobby Soni Jakob Svagin Raheesty Nishta Nem Anne Gladbo Platz Christian Brix Tillegreen Anders Østerby Mønsted Katrine Villarreal Villumsen Tine Roland Presterud #powertox #innovation #entrepreneurship #planetaryhealth #funding