Breakout Labs’ Unboxing Shines Light on Deep Technologies
Last week, Breakout Labs held Unboxing — our annual showcase in which Breakout Labs portfolio companies “unbox” their scientific innovation. Nearly 300 investors, strategic partners, and community members made their way to the Pearl to watch 16 of our portfolio companies present their deep technologies.
We kicked-off the event by shining a little light on what we do at Breakout Labs and how we’re building a future powered by science.
Executive Director Lindy Fishburne welcomed everyone to Unboxing and introduced our first set of companies who are making advances in chemical synthesis.
Curie Co uses proprietary enzyme engineering and synthetic biology techniques to replace chemical-based-antimicrobials banned by the FDA in personal care products.
Peroxygen Systems is a clean chemistry company developing breakthrough technology for on-site oxidizer production.
ZymoChem is re-designing the microbe to eliminate carbon loss during the brewing of chemicals.
Opus 12 is transforming industrial carbon dioxide emissions into useful chemicals.
After Kendra Kuhl’s Opus 12 presentation, we took a break from presentations for a fireside chat between our Scientific Director Hema Parthasarathy and 3Scan’s CEO Todd Huffman. 3Scan is a computational pathology company improving the understanding and diagnosis of disease through novel robotics, sensors, and chemistry. 3Scan was one of the first companies we funded back in 2012 with Breakout Labs that we’ve continued to work with through Breakout Ventures.
After the fireside chat, Hemai welcomed our next group of companies that are working on treating disease through new technology.
Azitra is developing a microbiome-based platform to deliver sustainable treatments for skin disease.
Orion BioScience targets disease-activated immune cells with its Soluble Antigen Array (SAgA) technology to promote peripheral tolerance and restore health.
Siva Therapeutics’ interventional oncology approach targets therapeutic heat to solid tumors.
Immusoft’s Immune System Programming technology creates sustained, personalized drug factories from a patient’s own B cells, for the treatment of multiple diseases.
When Immusoft concluded their presentation, Portfolio Director Julia Moore took the stage to mention the 12 companies with us that would not be presenting and led us into a networking break to see demos and meet with the founders.
After the break, Julia announced the third session of companies who are discovering and diagnosing at different scales.
Pelitex is commercializing a new generation of magnetic beads that will improve current products and enable new applications in diagnostics, therapeutics, and drug discovery.
G-Tech Medical is creating the “EKG for the gut”, a wireless patch that measures the motor activity of digestive organs.
Envisagenics identifies novel therapeutic targets in cancer and genetic disorders, using an in silico platform that combines transcriptomics data with machine learning.
When Envisagenics’ presentation concluded, Lindy took the stage to welcome CytoVale’s CEO Ajay Shah up for our second fireside chat. CytoVale measures dozens of single cell biophysical and morphological markers at high throughput and low-cost to develop clinical diagnostics, with a flagship product in early sepsis detection. We funded CytoVale in 2013 and have also continued to work with them through Breakout Ventures.
At the end of the fireside chat, Lindy introduced the last group of companies who are powering the world more efficiently and cleanly.
Seatrec is harvesting clean energy from temperature differences in the environment to provide power at remote, off-grid locations.
UbiQD has developed a new kind of safer, brighter, more cost-effective, and more reliable quantum dot.
CalWave harnesses the renewable power of ocean waves to produce electricity and freshwater through its Wave Energy Converter.
After CalWave’s presentation, networking followed with more demos on the mezzanine and a beautiful cocktail reception on the rooftop.
