BRIdge Alfa: mission accomplished
The cooperation of Black Pearls VC with the National Centre for Research and Development has proven successful. The scheme – aimed at supporting innovative ideas born at Polish universities –helped to raise finance for nine companies from one of our funds, Black Pearls LQT Fund.
About a year ago, the National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR), a Polish state agency financing R&D projects, invited ten private investors to take part in a scheme called BRIdge Alfa. The program was created with a view to finding new financial instruments to help bring innovative ideas to the market. NCBR provided 80% of the financing needed by the supported projects, while the remainder was laid out by an investor.
Black Pearls LQT Fund entered the scheme with a goal to invest 20 million PLN in Polish start-ups that contribute to improving the quality of life. As a result, all nine companies from the Black Pearls LQT Fund portfolio were granted 500,000 PLN to 2 million PLN from the BRIdge Alfa scheme.
“What was then assumed a three-year investment plan was almost completely accomplished in a single year”, commented Marcin Kowalik, co-founder and managing partner in Black Pearls VC.
The enterprises from our LQT Fund range from a voice biometric system through social housing project to ideas for the medical sector.
Plurimum is a start-up company working on a polycarbonate seal equipped with a barcode that could revolutionize the transport industry and facilitate cargo filing.
Piktorex came up with an idea of labels with easy-to-read pictograms that help patients understand the dosage of medicine. Once placed on the medicine packaging, they improve safety and effectiveness of a drug thus limiting costs of ineffective treatment for the state.
Rehabilitatus is an idea of an IT system that will provide remote support for medical rehabilitation treatment.
Parkanizer is a brand new way of managing parking spaces in public and private car parks.
Voicelab.AI aims at eliminating the need of logging in with PINs and passwords by using recognition of human voice.
Rebel Module Eco is a new technology for social housing: light-construction and energy-efficient buildings that are easy to set up and to relocate if needed. So the building can be used more than once, thus saving costs for the state.
Quantum Lab develops a project which will help recognize customers’ emotions by scanning their faces. An idea that can turn out to be an invaluable advantage not only to retail industry but also a practical tool for security at airports and sport venues.
BRicK – Biometric Registration Kit by Brick Biometry is a solution that local governments can find useful in implementing biometric registry and issuing IDs.
Inpharmica is involved in the third stage of clinical testing of a new painkiller.
”Of course the plan is not fully completed yet. Once the supported start-ups successfully accomplish the proof-of-concept stages, they may need another round of financing. This is when we plan to step in again”, says Marcin Kowalik of Black Pearls VC.
