SPIE reveals Startup Challenge 2021 semi-finalists

16 Apr 2021

Finals of the annual pitch competition to be held 2 June; virtual training sessions also announced.

At an event headlined by Photon Fund’s Zhenlin Li and Fusion Fund’s Homan Yeun, SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, has announced the 36 semi-finalists for the 2021 SPIE Startup Challenge.

The announcement took place on 14 April during this year's SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing Digital Forum.

SPIE stated, “Today, light-based technologies enable developments in a proliferating number of areas, from healthcare and high-speed communications to quantum computing, AR-VR-MR, and self-driving vehicles.”

The Startup Challenge, now in its 11th year, is an annual entrepreneurial pitch competition for new businesses that utilize optics and photonics to create innovative products, applications, or technologies, and the winning teams share from more than $85,000 in cash and other prizes.

Indicator of commercial success

Previous winners that have gone on to wider commercial success include Cellino Biotech, Double-Helix Optics, PhotoniCare, and C. Light Technologies.

This year, the 36 startups will be attending a series of virtual training sessions — that will consider “What Investors Want”, “Prototyping and Market Strategy”, and “Valuation and Legal Issues” — as well as pitching their products and technologies through the Startup Challenge's two tracks, Healthcare and Deep Tech.

Teams will be given feedback on their financial and market viability from more than 20 judges, all of whom are business-development experts or venture capitalists in the photonics industry.

Successful teams will move onto the finals, which will be held online on 2 June. Attendance to the SPIE Startup Challenge finals is free, but registration is required. The SPIE Startup Challenge semi-finals will run in weekly sessions on the 5, 12, 19, 26 of May. Again, attendance to these virtual sessions is free, but registration is also required.