British Columbia Innovation Council

Aeos Biomedical Inc. was announced the winner of the BCIC entrepreneurship@UBC Seed Accelerator fund competition and is now entering into negotiations for an investment of $100,000.

At the competition on Thursday, October 20, five new ventures from the UBC community gave compelling presentations and then responded to a series of probing questions from a panel of seasoned investors and entrepreneurs.

First to present was Precision Nanosystems, who outlined how they are developing innovative solutions for the production of nanoparticle delivery systems for use in laboratory research and drug development.

Next was Aeos Biomedical, who described how their lead product, Target Tape, can improve the accuracy of surgical incisions and procedures. Target Tape is a disposable adhesive tape with radiopaque locational markings, used with medical imaging. When removed, it leaves behind an ink imprint of the locational markings, allowing the surgeon to correlate and localize between the scanned image and the patient's skin. The two founders, alumni from UBC's faculty of Applied Science and the Sauder School of Business, conceived Target Tape while participating in the 2009/10 New Venture Design program.

RentGeek, with founders and a management team that includes recent alumni from the Sauder School of Business and Faculty of Applied Science, described how their personalized home rental site integrates lifestyle needs, a distance calculator, neighborhood information and browse listings all in one place. RentGeek then makes renting easy by providing smart recommendations as to which neighborhood fits the renter's lifestyle.

Wishtag Solutions described how their venture could turn traditional product placements into web-connected, interactive displays that retailers may use to provide product-specific information and sales assets directly to consumers while they are in-store. Activated by close proximity to a desired product, the WishTag application launches automatically and re-brands itself to each visited store, ensuring continuity of the shopping experience. WishTag has strong roots at UBC with two of the three founders being MBA candidates from the Sauder School of Business.

Finally, Dynamic Monitoring Technology Corporation pitched its lead product, DyMoShovel, an intelligent shovel health monitoring system used in cable shovels operating in open pit mines. The founders and management team are comprised of a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, a PhD Candidate in Electrical Engineering and an MBA Candidate from the UBC Sauder School of Business.

Immediately following the pitches, the investment panel, led by Haig Farris, deliberated in private over the five very different opportunities and their commercial potential of each before returning to announce the winners: Aeos Biomedical for their product, Target Tape.

Congratulations to all presenting companies for advancing to the final five, and for providing outstanding arguments to the panel of expert judges. Videos of the event and the presenting companies will be posted online soon.

A unique partnership between BCIC, UBC alumni and the university, the Seed Accelerator is a venture fund owned and operated by UBC for the purpose of investing in the next generation of student entrepreneurs. Capitalized with donations from alumni with matching contributions from BCIC, the Seed Accelerator seeks out very early-stage business opportunities founded by students or alumni who have graduated within the last three years.

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