MantiSpectra wins Hannover Messe’s Hermes Startup Award

17 Apr 2023

Dutch startup has developed “smallest on market” fully integrated near-infrared sensor.

Recently-founded Dutch company MantiSpectra, based in Eindhoven, was today awarded the Startup Award for its ChipSense product at the official opening of Hannover Messe industrial technology trade fair in the presence of Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Every year, the Hermes Startup Award honors a young company for its development of an outstanding product. The award-winning product this year is a fully integrated near-infrared sensor – the smallest of its kind on the market, with a footprint of 1 mm².

The sensor enables rapid, highly accurate analysis on a manufacturing production line, from where it delivers real-time data. This makes it possible for defects to be detected as soon as they occur and for savings to be made through immediate quality control on the spot, on the production line. The product is already in use in industry, agriculture and food processing.

“The small and cost-effective sensor in the near-infrared spectrum is easy to integrate and opens up a whole range of new application perspectives," said Prof. Reimund Neugebauer, President of the Fraunhofer Society and chair of the Hermes Startup Award jury. “More than 300 startups are showcasing their innovations at Hannover Messe this year. This represents a significant increase over 2023.

About ChipSense

According to MantiSpectra, “ChipSense enables the creation of novel material sensors that are 1000 times smaller and up to 50 times cheaper compared to industry standards. MantiSpectra enables businesses to undertake their own analysis using portable devices.”

By using integrated photonics, MantiSpectra says, the company has been able to significantly reduce the size of material sensors while also reducing costs: “Traditional devices can cost on average €50,000. [We] will eventually reduce the cost of a sensor to less than €10 – enabling mass adoption in the consumer market, such as into smart phone cameras.”

MantiSpectra is backed by PhotonDelta, a Netherlands-based hub for the integrated photonics industry. Its ChipSense technology is now being used by three of the top ten beverage companies in the world, a number of Fortune 500 companies, and has entered trials with the Dutch National Police.

Maurangelo Petruzzella, Managing Director at MantiSpectra, said, “ChipSense perfectly encapsulates the power of integrated photonics – without it we would not have been able to create such a powerful, compact and affordable device. The most exciting innovations are yet to come. We will be able to make even smaller and cost-effective devices which will lead to applications right across the consumer market.”