Alumni startup InoCure is among 15 finalists of EIT Health InnoStars Awards

EIT Health InnoStars Awards is a training and competition programme in which a selected number of early-stage companies and SMEs receives €25 000 funding as smart money for business development and product validation. Moreover, a selected list of candidates will be allowed to participate in the InnoStars Final pitch event and win awards of up to €25 000 to launch their product or service.

To the 3rd year of the InnoStars Awards have applied 116 high-quality teams from 13 RIS Countries. Selected by a panel of experts, the winning startups include five from Portugal, two from Poland, two from Hungary, two from Latvia, one from the Czech Republic, one from Lithuania, one from Italy and one from Romania.

InoCure is the only company from the Czech Republic. They deliver solutions for life science and pharmaceutical industry. Their product DifMATRIX is the first active 3D cell culture membrane that enables faster, reliable and ethical preclinical testing. "We have applied with our project and based on that, they invited to a virtual meeting with EIT Health. We introduced our work and talked about the expectations. Shortly after the call, we got the information that we are one of the finalists." says Matej Buzgo, co-founder of InoCure.

During the programme, participants attend two BootCamps, "The first BootCamp was really interesting. We have been training soft skills, such as posture and presentation skills. It was interesting to watch the differences in pitching between the teams from southern countries and the Central European ones. Also, we have got some contacts. Starting with participating teams, through speakers from the industry who are involved in numerous projects." added Matej. 

There is also the second part of InnoStars Awards with focus on product validation and mentoring. InoCure got a mentor that helps with grants and goes through different investment strategies since they are looking for a suitable investor.

"The biggest value so far was another point of view on how to communicate our project from a different cultural perspective. E.g. we had to adjust the strategy used in DEXIC Accelerator to be more emotional and alive for presentation to this specific audience." summed Matej the programme. 

Congratulations guys! 

If you want to learn more about InnoStars Awards, check the video.