A Luxembourg space biotech research company has won a $1 million (€860,000) investment, as part of a global venture capital competition created by an American billionaire, the company said on Wednesday.
Meet the Drapers is a venture capital competition created and hosted by investor Tim Draper, with the Luxembourg start-up Exobiosphere named as the winner of the competition which aired on Tuesday.
“This investment from Tim Draper and the Meet the Drapers platform is a tremendous validation of what we’re building at Exobiosphere,” said the company’s CEO Kyle Acierno. “Tim Draper has a track record of recognising transformative ideas before they become mainstream, and we’re honoured that he sees the potential in what we’re building.”
Exobiosphere also won Luxembourg’s Startup World Cup in May 2025. The company 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.