MIT.nano has announced seven new companies to join START.nano, a program aimed at speeding the transition of hard-tech innovation to market. The program supports new ventures through discounted use of MIT.nano’s facilities and access to the MIT innovation ecosystem.
The advancements pursued by the newly engages startups include wearables for health care, green alternatives to fossil fuel-based energy, novel battery technologies, enhancements in data systems, and interconnecting nanofabrication knowledge networks, among others.
“The transition of the grand idea that is imagined in the laboratory to something that a million people can use in their hands is a journey fraught with many challenges,” MIT.nano Director Vladimir Bulović said at the 2024 Nano Summit, where nine START.nano companies presented their work. The program provides resources to ease startups over the first two hurdles — finding stakeholders and building a well-developed prototype.
In addition to access to laboratory tools necessary to advance their technologies, START.nano companies receive advice from MIT.nano expert staff, are connected to MIT.nano Consortium companies, gain a broader exposure at MIT conferences and community events, and are eligible to join the MIT Startup Exchange.
“MIT.nano has allowed us to push our project to the frontiers of sensing by implementing advanced fabrication techniques using their machinery,” said Uroš Kuzmanović, CEO and founder of Biosens8. “START.nano has surrounded us with exciting peers, a strong support system, and a spotlight to present our work. By taking advantage of all that the program has to offer, BioSens8 is moving faster than we could anywhere else.”
Here are the seven new START.nano participants:
Analog Photonics is developing lidar and optical communications technology using silicon photonics.
Biosens8 is engineering novel devices to enable health ownership. Their research focuses on multiplexed wearables for hormones, neurotransmitters, organ health markers, and drug use that will give insight into the body’s health state, opening the door to personalized medicine and proactive, data-driven health decisions.
Casimir, Inc. is working on power-generating nanotechnology that interacts with quantum fields to create a continuous source of power. The team compares their technology to a solar panel that works in the dark or a battery that never needs to be recharged.
Central Spiral focuses on lossless data compression. Their technology allows for the compression of any type of data, including those that are already compressed, reducing data storage and transmission costs, lowering carbon dioxide emissions, and enhancing efficiency.
FabuBlox connects stakeholders across the nanofabrication ecosystem and resolves issues of scattered, unorganized, and isolated fab knowledge. Their cloud-based platform combines a generative process design and simulation interface with GitHub-like repository building capabilities.
Metal Fuels is converting industrial waste aluminum to onsite energy and high-value aluminum/aluminum-oxide powders. Their approach combines existing mature technologies of molten metal purification and water atomization to develop a self-sustaining reactor that produces alumina of higher value than our input scrap aluminum feedstock, while also collecting the hydrogen off-gas.
PolyJoule, Inc. is an energy storage startup working on conductive polymer battery technology. The team’s goal is a grid battery of the future that is ultra-safe, sustainable, long living, and low-cost.
In addition to the seven startups that are actively using MIT.nano, nine other companies have been invited to join the latest START.nano cohort:
- Acorn Genetics
- American Boronite Corp.
- Copernic Catalysts
- Envoya Bio
- Helix Carbon
- Minerali
- Plaid Semiconductors
- Quantum Network Technologies
- Wober Tech
Launched in 2021, START.nano now comprises over 20 companies and eight graduates — ventures that have moved beyond the initial startup stages and some into commercialization.