‘Hard Tech’ Start ups Compete in First Ever LIHTI Venture Champions Challenge

From left: Andrew Wooten (LIHTI), Evgenii Boriushkin (Tropocan, Inc.), Shi Fu (VascuTek Solutions), Eric Papenhausen (12bit AI), Fang Luo (CurrentEdge Power Semiconductor LLC), and Shruti Sharma (LIHTI). Photos by John Griffin.

The Long Island High Technology Incubator(LIHTI) is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping new technologically innovative companies grow by providing them with a variety of support resources and services. LIHTI's location on the Stony Brook University campus creates a supportive environment to transfer cutting-edge ideas from the university to the private sector.

On October 11, LIHTI held its first-ever Venture Champions (VC) Challenge on October 11, as 12 start-up companies created a ten-minute presentation describing their business to a panel of judges, then answered a round of questions to conclude their pitch. Eleven Stony Brook-based companies and one Columbia University-based company competed in three tracks: Energy, Information, or Health.

"This is our first of this variant of the challenge," said Andrew Wooten, executive director for LIHTI. "We've had other challenges in the past, but with this one we wanted to put a 'hard tech' spin on it. I think that's one of the real competencies of Stony Brook University, and this ecosystem is our depth in science and engineering as opposed to what you could do down on Main Street. We're trying to be the place where these hard tech entrepreneurs can build ventures, and this challenge is a great start."

Winner Fang Luo is founder of CurrentEdge and Empire Innovation associate professor of Electrical Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Participants received access to professional coaching as well as a community of experts, mentors, and like-minded peers. Winners received continued mentorship opportunities and access to follow-on programs, additional funding, and training.

Winners also received cash awards in the form of funds that will apply towards I-Corps™ support related to customer discovery, technology development, infrastructure, advice, resources, networking opportunities, and training. The National Science Foundation's (NSF) I-Corps (Innovation Corps) program nurtures and supports winners to transition their ideas, devices, processes or other intellectual activities into the marketplace or into becoming I-Corps Team applicants. The program seeks to develop and nurture a national innovation ecosystem that builds upon research to guide the output of scientific discoveries closer to the development of technologies, products and processes that benefit society.

CurrentEdge Power Semiconductor LLC was named the winner in the Energy Track, 12bit AI won in the Information Track, and VascuTek Solutions and Tropocan, Inc. were named co-winners in the Health Track.

"CurrentEdge is a brand new economy, we only got set up a month ago," said Fang Luo, founder of CurrentEdge and Empire Innovation associate professor of Electrical Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences. "Our focus is on power semiconductor manufacturing as well as packaging. We have the capability to make advanced power modules for different energy-demanding sectors, from defense to green. We're exploring a new operation mode and we look forward to working together to make something important. Thank you for giving us this opportunity."

"It's apparent that medical images are hard to come by," said Eric Papenhausen '17, co-founder of 12bit AI. "What we're doing is generating those images synthetically. They can then be used by other AI models to train on, which will help cancer detection, segmentation, clinical planning and more. Hopefully that will evolve into more of a foundation model where we can do things like AI-based diagnosis, treatment planning, and surgical planning. We look forward to working with LIHTI to further that mission."

"There's truly nobody in this competition today that we wouldn't love to continue working with," said Wooten. "I didn't expect the caliber and turnout we got. The next generation of hard tech leaders need to be inclusive, inventive, and innovative. This challenge can open a path for these entrepreneurs to build a venture and gain training, mentorship, resources and community."

- Robert Emproto

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