Exobiosphere to represent Luxembourg at Startup World Cup: biotech innovation meets space exploration

Biotech research company Exobiosphere will fly the flag for Luxembourg at this year’s World Cup for start-ups, after winning the national competition on Thursday.

The Luxembourg heat is one of more than 100 around the world this year for what has become the world’s largest start-ups competition, with winners proceeding to the finals in San Francisco in October.

The event, hosted by EY Luxembourg, saw ten Luxembourg start-ups, chosen from the 46 which applied, present four-minute pitches to the audience and a jury of industry experts, who agreed that Exobiosphere’s fusion of space and biotech was the most promising entry.

“I think this is a good opportunity for us to pitch on the world stage and particularly with the Americans. There are a lot of VCs there that we want to talk to and because we want to move into the US it’s a really good opportunity for us to get the exposure that we need to grow there,” co-founder and CEO Kyle Acierno said after the event.

Exobiosphere draws on research showing that cancer progresses up to 100-times faster in space than on Earth and turns it on its head with the promise that lengthy cancer research projects could be much quicker in outer space.

The company’s experiments on live cancer cells fit in a box the size of a cabin bag, are completely automated, and send results to Earth in real-time.

For Acierno, the competition in California on 15 October is a great opportunity to connect with US partners and investors as the company works to expand into the USA, where, he says, the majority of space investment still takes place. “But we [also] work in biotech and Europe has a bunch of successful biotech companies, pharmaceutical companies, So we do think that there’s an opportunity here,” he said.

If the team impresses during the semi-final on 15 October, they will earn a spot in the grand final two days later, where the winner will receive a $1 million (€881,000) investment package.

From left to right: Bill Reichert, partner at Pegasus Tech Ventures; Pierre Schoonbroodt, CFO of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange; Genna Elvin, president of Pulse, the Luxembourg start-ups association; Kyle Acierno, Co-founder and CEO of Exobiosphere; Philippe Linster, CEO of the House of Startups; Mathias Mäenpää, co-founder of last year’s winner, Videobot; and Max Gindt, head of digital policy at the government’s department for media, connectivity & digital policy. © Photo credit: EY Luxembourg

Second spot at the Luxembourg heat went to Organo Therapeutics, which specialises mostly in Parkinson’s Disease treatments, using live cell cultures to predict which medications will work best for each individual patient.

The honourable mention of the night went to Essembl, the AI fashion assistant which prides itself on knowing its users’ wardrobes better than they do.

Startup World Cup’s Luxembourg regional heat has been running for seven years and the country has been represented in the grand final two years in a row, putting it behind only the USA and Japan – even though a Luxembourgish start-up has yet to win the big prize.

“What I’ve seen over the years now is the Luxembourg innovation ecosystem seems to be getting deeper and broader every year,” said Bill Reichert, a partner at Pegasus Tech Ventures, which created the competition and remains its main partner. “I feel as though the Luxembourg ecosystem here, the energy, the depth of technology, the breadth of technologies and entrepreneurs, just keeps getting better and better.”

With over 20 speakers and 2,500 attendees, the San Francisco event offers more than just the main prize for ambitious start-ups. But what if Exobiosphere wins? “We’re definitely going to use it to invest into our expansion in the US. So we’re already looking at a couple of different states and this kind of money would help us to hire some people and establish our beachhead,” said Acierno.

While Luxembourg and Europe perform well for creativity and early support, Reichert warns many success stories still move to the USA. “Every time I come to Europe, I hear the entrepreneurs complaining that there’s some decent support at the seed level, with the expansion of accelerators, with the expansion of grant programmes, with the expansion of that very early stage. But there still isn’t a well-developed progress path, you know, beyond seed,” he said.

Acierno, originally from Canada, has launched three start-ups in Luxembourg and said all are still present in the Grand Duchy. “The continuous support of the government, the evolution of how Luxembourg Space Agency is working with companies, and the European Space Agency as a whole, I think Europe has woken up to innovation and they’re going to continue to provide an environment for startups to grow locally,” he said.

The Luxembourg regional award was judged by a panel including Bill Reichert, partner at Pegasus Tech Ventures; Pierre Schoonbroodt, CFO of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange; Genna Elvin, president of Pulse, the Luxembourg start-ups association; Philippe Linster, CEO of the House of Startups; Mathias Mäenpää, co-founder of last year’s winner, Videobot; and Max Gindt, head of digital policy at the government’s Department for Media, Connectivity & Digital Policy.