GU Ventures national finalist in the Nordic Startup Awards!

GU Ventures is proud to announce that we made it to the finals in the Nordic Startup Awards 2018 in the "Best Accelerator or Incubation program" category - together with four champions in the field. In total, 2500 nominated startups, incubators, investors and eco system heros are participating.

Now YOU can vote for the winners in the different categories until Wednesday, the 22nd of August. The public votings will count as one jury member. Make sure to check out the other categories as well and vote for your favourites. You can place as many votes as you like.

THANK YOU! 

Click here to vote

   Klementina Österberg, CEO of GU Ventures, comments the nomination:

”It feels really great to be selected as one of the national finalists! And amongst such champions as the other nominees and finalists truly are. I sincerely thank my team members and our companies for their dedication and achievements. We have achieved pretty good results together, especially considering our costs to reach them, meaning that we are not just productive, but effective as well. And we are very happy with our recent track record as regards IPOs and exits.

We work mostly in an environment that starts with just an idea and an idea provider that is in need of everything else to be able to succeed, like a commercial team with the right experience and entrepreneurial drive, a good plan, financing, market intelligence, etc. So our contribution is to secure all that and then help the teams built their businesses.

We play an important part in the ecosystem by providing all these tools and resources. It is of course also important that the teams - including the idea providers, the boards and the investors - are satisfied with the support they get and that we are building sustainable businesses. The measure of success for us is when we make an important impact on society thanks to our companies.”

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Some testimonials from our companies:

  Erik Ekbo, CEO of PExA AB (publ):

"PExA is a start-up company that develops and commercializes a groundbreaking technology with potential for detecting pulmonary diseases at an early stage. We are very grateful for the support we got from GU Ventures. They have emphasized the importance of internationalization in an early company development process and have actively pursued the issue together with the idea provider, Professor Anna-Carin Olin at the University of Gothenburg. This contributed to the early planning and implementation of various international activities, which gave us faster access to international research groups, some of whom have already become customers."

  Sara Malcus, CEO and co-founder of MetaboGen AB:

"The Incubator, GU Ventures has been crucial for MetaboGen AB during our establishment and early progress. We are an innovative microbiome company creating breakthrough opportunities to develop novel therapeutics and next generation probiotics. Through the support from GU Ventures - both financially and on the business development side - MetaboGen was able to focus and to also successfully secure soft financing. This ensured that the development could be done with high quality, effectively and with reduced risk. MetaboGen was then well-equipped for the future, much thanks to support from the incubator, so that BioGaia AB (publ) invested and subsequently bought the company."

  Martin Olovsson, CEO and co-founder of OnDosis AB:

"OnDosis is developing a smart drug delivery platform for personalized and connected dosing of medicines with the objective to improve treatment outcomes for a wide array of diseases and patients.

For OnDosis, GU Ventures has played a crucial role and still do. 1. To start with, as an owner with high risk willingness and as capial injector, they helped us accelerate product development. 2. By taking responsibility for important functions; such as support within business development, law, finance and formalities visavi authorities, as well as coherence in the board work. 3. By contributing to effective decision-making, and stimulating speed and pragmatism as well as avoiding that analysis would lead to paralysis."

Elisabet Litsmark Nordenstam, former chair of Toleranzia AB (publ):

"Toleranzia develops drugs that utilize the immune system's own intrinsic power to treat autoimmune orphan diseases. The incubator, GU Ventures has, since the founding of Toleranzia, played an important role in the development of the company, which has been listed on Spotlight Stock Market (formerly Aktietorget) in 2015. GU Ventures plays an active role both by working strategically in the board and as an owner. In my role as chairman, it has been a great asset to lean against the great commitment, experience and knowledge of the employees of GU Ventures."

  Erik Gatenholm, CEO and co-founder of CELLINK AB (publ):

"GU Ventures is a fantastic incubator and accelerator working in the field of Life Sciences, which has suited us perfectly. They have helped CELLINK to develop, recruit, build a brand in the Swedish market and to help us grow our Eruopean footprint. We have recieved such confidence and excitement for our technology and team, which have helped us grow to where we are today - a global leader in 3D bioprinting with bioinks for bioprinting of human tissues. A business that is growing rapidly, employing 75 people and selling our products in more than 40 countries."

  Dr. Qiuhong Hu, Founder and Chief Science Officer of Luxbright AB

"Luxbright is one of the companies that was given birth in the GU Ventures Incubator. As the founder of LuxBright, I have had the most positive experience with GUV, from its management and business coaches to stuff in general. GUV’s success in identifying good projects, selecting suitable managers and personnel, and building start-ups, saved Luxbright time, effort and limited resources to focus on the most important activities.

In the beginning, Luxbright was located in GUV’s building neighboring many brother and sister companies, which allowed Luxbright to get the greatest input and to have the shortest communication channel to the Mother, channels easily accessible for pitching and presentation opportunities, the infrastructure to share with, and the network to accesses for financing and partnership.

Retrospectively speaking, on one hand, GUV has provided prompt and high quality service for Luxbright from both daily needs and long term strategies, minimized or eliminated certain risks that were anticipated or not anticipated, and secured several rounds of seed funding. Without GUV, on the other hand, the way to achieve so much as we have done now, could have been much more difficult with more fatal moments. In addition, going through the different development phases, apart from the development of the company as a whole, me as the founder and the team have acquired and strengthened our spirit of entrepreneurship. And we are highly grateful.

GUV created Luxbright, and Luxbright creates X-Ray Brilliance."

  Per Wester, CEO of Alzinova AB (publ):

"Alzinova develops drugs againts Alzheimer's disease and thanks to our technology, we have now a vaccine in pipeline. We have worked with GU Ventures since 2008 to reach this, and during this timeframe we could continue to develop our research whilst in the incubator. Most importantly, their commitment meant that new investors and highly competent individuals discovered and became interested in the company. We have had, thanks to GU Ventures, access to both capital and skills that were necessary to continue developing Alzinova."

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About Nordic Startup Awards:

Nordic Startup Awards is part of the Global Startup Awards, providing an annual spotlight to those who dare to dream big and shape the way our future will look. Bringing together amazing ideas and best talents from 5 regions, 40+ countries across the globe to celebrate entrepreneurial spirit and startups. The overall process of the competition bottom-up (from national level up to the regional and global level) consists of 4 different phases. Each of the country partners invites a national jury of 7 jury members per category, with extensive knowledge and experience relevant to the category. A jury member can rate in more than one category. The rating of each finalist is done through a star based system provided by GSAwards, where each finalist is rated from 1 to 5 stars. The public votes weigh as one jury member, and they are equivalent to stars. Each finalist receives from 1 to 5 stars depending on the amount of votes gathered through the online voting phase. The overall rating of each finalist is based on the sum of the stars from the national jury and the public voting. The national jury provides quotes supporting the specific rating on the finalists. The National Winners are announced at the national events and published online.Please visit: http://nordicstartupawards.com

About GU Ventures:

GU Ventures AB is fully owned by the Swedish government and is managed since 1998 by the University of Gothenburg. The mission is to commercialise ideas in connection to the operations at the University of Gothenburg and to deliver economic and social benefits. To ensure this, GU Ventures builds and invests its own funds in new businesses, which are actively supported in the GU Ventures incubator that provides business development and administrative support. With over 150 new businesses established, that have lead to över 30 exits and 12 IPOs, UBI Global Index has top ranked GU Ventures for its incubation and investment operations. Please visit: www.guventures.com.