CoMotion Innovation Gap Fund Awardees – Spring 2022

Verity FiTech is a scalable digital credit information platform built to enable financiers and insurers to perform low-cost credit scoring and risk assessments on small micro-enterprises at scale. This will build trust and unlock equitable financial access for under-financed small businesses in emerging economies.

Our innovation is CHaRT (Climate Health and Risk Tool), a modeling system and web platform that shows public health practitioners, community groups, and healthcare facility managers not only where health risks are, but also what drives those risks locally allowing users to more quickly and efficiently plan for and react to climate-driven health risks while taking socioeconomic equity goals into account.

SeaO2 Farms is method to grow gigatonnes of microalgae offshore, at a fraction of the cost of land crops and without using arable land or fresh water while capturing massive amounts of atmospheric C0₂. This algal biomass can then be processed into carbon neutral fuel using existing techniques that are used to process sewer sludge into fuel for incinerators or provide carbon negative power when used with underground carbon capture power plants.

New highly effective whole organism malaria vaccines have been developed but require multiple doses by IV administration making them impractical for the regions most impacted by malaria. Our innovation is an ultra-low volume microarray syringe adaptor for malaria vaccination allowing the highly effective whole organism malaria vaccines to be easily administered to the ideal place in the skin in a single dose.

Early identification of infants at risk of perinatal brain injury is critical and is done using blood pH measurements which are often not available in low-income countries due to high cost and lack of trained personnel. pHast Cam, utilizes a patch containing a pH sensitive dye and ubiquitous smartphone camera technology to determine blood pH within seconds.

SMER is a fully automated single-mode electromagnetic resonance rewarming system for large-scale cryopreserved biomaterials ranging from sensitive cell suspension used in the next generation of immunotherapies to whole organs for transplantation.

Apex Solar has developed a novel coating that is applied to solar cells for producing up to 10% more power potential, providing a path to reduce price/Watt and shrink footprint by incurring only 1% production cost increase.

The SonicBond process delivers acoustic energy to generate heat in a precise target zone using high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) allowing for bonding of parts without damage to nearby sensitive components such as electronics or batteries greatly simplifying the assembly process of new products as well as increasing energy efficiencies of bonding processes by up to 80%.

CathConnect is developing a device that allows the standard urinary catheter to disconnect when pulled, protecting patients from urethral trauma and other injuries. The device is a separate accessory to the catheter and can be placed into existing catheter tubing.

inSTENT Connection is developing a new stent for gastrointestinal (GI) anastomosis, where two segments of the intestine are joined after surgery. By using a novel structure incorporating resorbable microbarbs, anastomosis surgery is easier, faster with safer surgical connections that addresses leakage in ways that traditional methods, such as staples and sutures, cannot.

Nimble Surgical is developing a novel controllable metamaterial-based catheter that, unlike existing catheters, easily navigates through challenging anatomies including beating hearts, to greatly reduce surgical times by up to 50%.

We have developed a new nuclear imaging camera, Coded Detection, that has 5,000 times the sensitivity of current clinical nuclear imaging cameras enabling improved image quality and image clarity that promises to greatly improve the diagnosis and treatment of Parkinson’s Disease and many other conditions.

Current infusion needle sets are not inherently antimicrobial, requiring separate application of antimicrobial dressings to patients whose implanted ports are accessed. EZXS combines needles and dressings to create an all-in-one device that will ensure stable, accurate needle insertion to simplify implanted port access procedures for nurses and reduce the risk of infection for patients.

NIMBUS is a mattress for neonatal incubators that uses a novel buckling system to dampen potentially damaging vibrations and impacts by over 40% to prevent potential injuring including intraventricular hemorrhaging.