40 Innovative Startups Join Investor FOUNDER.org’s Class of 2016

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FOUNDER.org

Jun 03, 2015, 09:00 ET


Palo Alto, CA (PRWEB) June 03, 2015 -- FOUNDER.org, the global investor for young innovators, welcomes new startups to the Class of 2016. To get started, each team will receive up to $100,000 in funding awards. Each year, these entrepreneurs engage in 8D© the FOUNDER.org company building program designed to create a foundation for startup hyper growth. The teams kickoff at the World Founder Forum in Stockholm on June 14-17 with the FOUNDER.org alumni companies.

Annually, FOUNDER.org selects startups that are solving some of the planet’s biggest problems, founded by students and recent alumni from universities around the world. This year’s applicants hail from 45 schools across Europe and the North America, representing 9 countries and more than 20 different industries including space technology, life sciences, mass customization, agriculture 2.0, industrial sensors, robotics, digital health and genomics.

Started in 2012, by serial entrepreneur Michael Baum, the founding CEO of big data pioneer Splunk, FOUNDER.org has engaged over 100 startups in the 8D program and further invested in 20 companies through its investment fund. Michael Baum explains, “Our mission is to support the next generation of courageous innovators to help them alter the future in profoundly positive ways. We focus on startups with the biggest ideas that are going to have a measurable impact on our world.”

From the Class of 2015, Eko Devices CEO Connor Landgraf says, "The FOUNDER.org team, and Michael, have constantly pushed us to grow faster and think bigger - to take what we’re doing now and find bigger opportunities for innovation." Eko has created a digital stethoscope system to put a cardiologist in every doctor’s pocket. The system is in pilot testing at University of California San Francisco Medical Center and Stanford University Hospital.

FOUNDER.org will be announcing this year’s $10,000, $50,000 and $100,000 funding awards at the World Founder Forum in Stockholm. This year, the World Founder Forum will be hosted at KTH The Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. “It is an amazing opportunity to meet the next generation of great innovators and company builders. We host a tight-knit community of teams, alumni, mentors, investors and press. It’s a very high energy event where everyone is excited by the same goal of being a part of building a world-changing company,” said Michael Baum.

"We are both honored and humbled to have been selected for the 2016 Class of Founder.org. Audacy's company vision of becoming a solar system provider for spacecraft communications is of epic scale, and Founder.org's international community allows us to partner with - and learn from - the best entrepreneurs in the world. Tomorrow's tech businesses have to be global, and so are today's most promising founders,” remarked Ralph Ewig, CEO of Audacy.

The FOUNDER.org Class of 2016:

  • Additive Rocket Company: Rocket engines for nano rocket launchers (UCSD)
  • Akanocure Pharmaceuticals: Nature inspired cancer therapies (Purdue University)
  • AlphaSheets: Cloud-based financial modeling (MIT)
  • Audacy Corporation: Space-based Internet (Stanford University)
  • BeamLine Diagnostics: Pre-cancer screening software (University College London)
  • Biocarbon Engineering: Industrial scale reforestation (University of Oxford)
  • BioInspira: Airborne chemical detection (University of California Berkeley)
  • Blocks: Modular smartwatch platform (Imperial College London)
  • Building Radar: Geo-opportunity analysis (Center for Digital Technology Management, London School of Economics, Technische Universität München)
  • Cambridge Bio-Augmentation: Platform for interactive prosthesis (University of Cambridge)
  • Cariboo: Turning locals into tour guides (ESCP Europe, EDHEC, Ecole Centrale Paris)
  • Civil Maps: Intelligent big data driven maps (University of California Berkeley)
  • Deekit: Real-time whiteboards (Tallinn University of Technology)
  • Deliberate: Global debate on important issues (Stanford University)
  • Desaia: Design and creation software for 3D virtual worlds (Technische Universität Berlin)
  • Dramatize: Streaming Bollywood worldwide (Harvard Business School)
  • Guardian Sensors: Vital sign sensors (University of Texas at Austin)
  • GiveVision: Smart Glasses for the visually impaired (University of Oxford)
  • Gravity Sketch Limited: 3D Sketching in augmented reality (Imperial College London)
  • Havenly: Personalized interior design (University of Pennsylvania)
  • HeySuccess: Marketplace for international student programs (Tallinn University of Technology)
  • ICEYE: Radar-based satellite imaging service (Aalto University)
  • LaserX: Satellite to ground communication (MIT, Harvard Business School)
  • LocoRobo Innovations Inc: Learning programming through robotics (Drexel University)
  • ManoMotion: Real-time 3D gesture tracking and analysis (KTH Royal Institute of Technology)
  • peerCast: Peer-to-peer live-streaming video (KTH Royal Institute of Technology)
  • Poly6 Technologies: Sustainable plastics technology (MIT)
  • Rankmi: Digitized talent management (UCLA)
  • RaptorMaps: Unmanned aerial systems for agriculture (MIT)
  • Rorus Inc.: Water purifiers for natural disaster relief (Carnegie Mellon)
  • Rubbee: E-bike conversion system (Kaunas University of Technology)
  • Sandbox SEF: Remote scientific experimentation (MIT)
  • Serket: Pharmacy integrated solution for medical non-adherence (University of Cambridge)
  • Spoiler Alert: Marketplace for surplus food (MIT)
  • SUN Bioscience: Organoids as a service (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne)
  • Symbio Robotics: Software for industrial robotics (University of California Berkeley, University of Southern California)
  • Transcense: Audio visual aids for the hearing-impaired (University of California Berkeley, University of San Francisco)
  • Unite Genomic Solutions: Big data analytics for genomics (University of California Berkeley)
  • Vendri: Video ad acceleration (University of Pennsylvania)
  • Woobo: AI-based imaginary friend (MIT, Carnegie Mellon University)

About FOUNDER.org

FOUNDER.org is a startup investor and company-building program for courageous young entrepreneurs who are solving the planet’s biggest problems. The extensive 8D© Company Building Program introduces new founders to the Silicon Valley way of building a high impact company and establishes the foundation for hypergrowth. FOUNDER.org also provides the funding that teams need to get started, investing directly in companies from partner schools in nine different countries. FOUNDER.org was started by a team of serial Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who have built billion dollar companies and are now working with the next generation of courageous young innovators to help them alter the future and transform our world in profoundly positive ways.

Learn more at http://www.founder.org.

Shannon Wu, FOUNDER.org, http://www.founder.org, +1 (925) 899-5512, [email protected]