ENGAGE.EU Europitch at Hanken: “Kick out the old dinosaurs and bring in the unicorns”
“Too often Europe struggles, trying to compete with global forces like the US and China. It’s time for us Europeans to come together and help our best and brightest talents to innovate. Europe needs more scaling entrepreneurs”, Hanken Business Lab’s director Markus Wartiovaara said in his welcoming speech.
Magret Jokela, program manager at Hanken Business Lab, says that the ENGAGE.EU Europitch is a pioneering collaboration within the university alliance ENGAGE.EU.
“We worked collectively with universities in the alliance to bring all these wonderful companies to Hanken.”
The participants in the pitching event came from Spain, Austria, Norway, the Netherlands, and Finland. The companies have developed, among other things, a new sugar substitute, environmental-friendly concrete and soundproof masks for gaming. One of the companies on stage was the member of Hanken Business Lab in Vaasa, Done Robotics, which makes easy-to-use robots to help people work more efficiently.
"At the moment, we are focusing on healthcare with a disinfection robot. Hospital bacteria pose a significant challenge in the medical field, and manually disinfecting spaces is both difficult and time-consuming. Our robot handles it quickly and can work around the clock," explains Thomas Höglund, CEO and founder of Done Robotics.
The company has developed a self-driving base module, and the disinfection module can easily be replaced with something else, such as a robot for moving hospital beds.
"Right now, it takes one or two persons to move beds in a hospital, and the distances can be very long. If the bed is empty, our robot can move it autonomously for example to the hospital's washing center," says Höglund.
Done Robotics plans to expand into elderly care, with both logistics robots and social robots that could assist the elderly with reminders, advice, and memory exercises. Höglund, who also has another startup, the interpretation app Understandify, thinks that the ENGAGE.EU Europitch event was a great opportunity to gain visibility and feedback from investors and branding experts.
"My companies aim for the global market, so it's important to hear how our solutions can address problems in other countries. It's great that we got these international delegations to Hanken, and thereby, building an international community of startups," says Höglund.
At the end of the event, Director Markus Wartiovaara, thanked the participants by saying it’s time for a change.
“It might be time to kick out the old dinosaurs and bring in the young companies, that maybe will become unicorns in the future. Hopefully you will create a different Europe, that is more inspirational, offers more jobs and opportunities and a good quality of life for all.”
The companies participating in the ENGAGE.EU Europitch at Hanken on 29 November were Zenyth Innovations, Metadox, Smiling Food, Yopla, Reveel, Lensor, Tether, Done Robotics and Inari. The expert panel consisted of Sofia Lund, founder of S Factor Company, Janiina Kauppinen, investment director at Vendep Capital and Henrik Steinbrecher, executive in residence at Hanken School of Economics.
Text: Jessica Gustafsson
Photos: Oscar Kääriäinen