Coimbra takes 12 startups with innovative solutions to the Web Summit

Um intelligent fire-fighting system, a gum for lab rats and a solution that transforms fiber optics into continuous sensors are some of the proposals of the 12 startups Coimbra will lead to Web Summit.

Coimbra presented today the 12 startups selected to represent the city on Web Summit, which begins on Monday in Lisbon, an event that took place at the old Nova Station.

One of the companies is RDefine, a biotech startup, which is developing a product called Happillness, which seeks to replace the current drug assay procedure for laboratory rats with a gum “which works as a completely agnostic vehicle for any drug, with any concentration,” Lusa told the company’s executive director, Patricia Lindeza.

According to the responsible, the current procedure (where a probe is used) “is highly violent, causes pain and death of the rats themselves and contaminates the results”.

Despite having as main potential customers the pharmaceutical industry and laboratories, Patrícia Lindeza believes that the solution (already patented for the European context) can also be escalated for pets.

The Web Summit entourage will also be Sim4Safety, a startup that develops intelligent decision-support systems in the context of forest fires (helping in prevention, planning and combat) or Sentiel.AI, which uses artificial intelligence to predict faults in critical systems, including energy, defense or space.

In the aerospace sector, Airsafe.AI will be present, which develops a solution that allows ‘drones’ to fly beyond the line of view (with automatic detection and diversion of an obstacle) and FLYOU that aims to anticipate risks in the performance of pilots, allowing to anticipate signs of fatigue in a professional class with high levels of ‘burnout’.

Fibersight, on the other hand, proposes to transform “optical fibers into continuous sensors”, able to measure the temperature and humidity throughout the fiber optics, with metro-to-meter precision, Lusa Inês Alves told the company.

According to the responsible, the solution allows monitoring infrastructure, but also quickly detect water leaks or fires that occur near the fiber optics, with the prospect of use in critical infrastructure such as data centres or airports.

Dormio intends to transform a personal phone into a sleep sensor, allowing easier identification of sleep apnea risks, which is estimated to be undiagnosed at 80% to 90% of people suffering from this disorder, explained Daniela Serras, co-founder of the company and doctor.

In this year's edition, Coimbra will have a joint presence on the Web Summit of the municipality, the recent agency for investment and innovation Go Coimbra (old iParque), University of Coimbra, Pedro Nunes Institute and Intermunicipal Community (CIM) of the Coimbra Region.