Meet the 6 ventures joining HATCH Venture Builder Winter 2023
This winter, we are excited to welcome six new ventures into HATCH Venture Builder (HATCH), a collaboration between entrepreneurship@UBC and the Institute for Computing, Information and Cognitive Systems (ICICS), supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs and innovators.
HATCH helps to propel early-stage venture growth, working with entrepreneurs to further develop their companies through rigorous finance, sales & marketing training, deep mentorship from our bench of Entrepreneurs and Executives in Residence, access to funding opportunities, as well as access to over 10,000 sq.ft. of state-of-the-art office and Makerspace. In this stage, ventures are de-risking their innovations and business models in an environment that encourages creativity, collaboration and grit. The newest ventures to join HATCH are addressing problems across climate, the built environment, human health, food processing and more, solving unmet global challenges through UBC research and innovation.
Our early-stage venture community is a part of the next generation of companies and leaders bringing new technology and approaches to solve critical global challenges. Our future depends on fostering community-wide collaborations like that seen with HATCH between entrepreneurship@UBC and ICICS:
“Our deep ties with ICICS have allowed for the early-stage entrepreneurs translating research and innovation at UBC to thrive, placing Vancouver startups on a global stage. We are thrilled to be welcoming these new ventures into the HATCH fold as they’ve demonstrated traction and are positioned to be leaders across their industries.”
Dr. Sean Lumb, Interim Managing Director, entrepreneurship@UBC
“HATCH has transformed the potential for entrepreneurship at the University of British Columbia: UBC is home to incredible and highly skilled entrepreneurs who are leading their fields and we are thrilled they’ve found a home in HATCH that encourages interdisciplinary collaboration and furthers their venture’s potential.”
Professor Robert Rohling, Director of the Institute for Computing, Information and Cognitive Systems (ICICS)
Meet the teams
CanDry Technologies
CanDry has developed an advanced ‘Agri-Products’ dehydration technology to deliver high quality and reduce costs. CanDry's mission is to design and manufacture industrial dehydrators utilizing a novel hybrid dehydration technology that preserves valuable nutrients, pigments, and product appearance, by using lower energy and reducing drying cycle time compared with the existing drying technologies in the market. CanDry's technology will assure an increase in productivity and revenue for the agriculture and agri-food sector while reducing GHG emissions and promoting advanced low-carbon dehydration technology in the Canadian agri-food and agriculture industry environment.
Founding team: Amir Hamzehali, Maddie Aliaslkhiabani and Hamid Rezaei
UBC affiliation: Maddie Aliaslkhiabani is a recent graduate of UBC’s Faculty of Applied Science and CanDry team member Hamid Rezaei is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering as part of the Faculty of Applied Science at UBC.
eBuilding
eBuilding is a smart trading platform with BIM (Building Information Modeling) technology combined with VR, AI and BlockChain technologies. Their smart platform allows even inexperienced homeowners to control project costs with the adoption of green technology. The first part of the product is the VR display and sales portal, which allows for virtual collaboration amongst designers, owners and builders, buyers and realtors. Owners can choose different materials and know the price changes in real time. The second part is using the BIM data model of the building, owners and developers can directly purchase materials on the smart trading platform, versus in person, and suppliers reduce transportation trips through smart routing and scheduling. Their target customers are homeowners, developers and builders.
Founding team: Michael Qu and Helen Zhou
UBC affiliation: Helen Zhou graduated with a Bachelor in Commerce from UBC Sauder School of Business.
OnDeck Fisheries AI
OnDeck Fisheries AI is building scalable, automated monitoring software for commercial fisheries. Misreporting of catch is contributing to the global collapse of our fisheries. Without the ability to monitor what is being caught at sea, it's impossible to sustainably manage fisheries, and regulations around the world require the manual review of hundreds of hours of video monitoring footage. OnDeck's automated catch monitoring replaces manual video footage review and makes automated review fast and affordable, creating a solution that can be deployed around the world. They bring together leading expertise in machine learning, computer vision, and fisheries to make scalable monitoring possible.
Founding team: Alexander Dungate, Sepand Dyanatkar and Matthew Leighton
UBC affiliation: Alexander Dungate is a recent Bachelor of Science graduate of Computer Science and Biology at UBC and Sepand Dyanatkar is a recent Bachelor of Science graduate in Computer Science and Physics from UBC.
SnapCyte
SnapCyte believes it’s time to democratize research. Their mission is to provide intelligent and easy-to-access tools to scientists around the world, generating apps that make basic cell analytics intelligent and fast - for the benefit of scientists worldwide. They help upgrade any lab microscope to a powerful data analysis tool using only your phone, harnessing the power of AI to get live cell analyses in your hand.
Founding team: Dr. Mads Daugaard, Negin Farivar, Nader Al-Nakouzi
UBC affiliation: Dr. Mads Daugaard is a Professor at the Vancouver Prostate Center of Excellence at UBC and runs the Daugaard Lab on the UBC Vancouver campus. Negin Farivar is doing her PhD thesis work in Experimental Research in the Daugaard Lab. She also holds a Master of Applied Science in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from UBC. Nader Al-Nakouzi is an Adjunct Professor in UBC’s Faculty of Medicine and a member of the Daugaard Lab.
UVX
UVX is bringing disinfection to the 21st Century, automatically disinfecting air and surfaces in occupied spaces without disrupting operations. The team has developed the world’s first smart ceiling device that is 6X more effective than chemical disinfection and 10X more effective than air purifiers with HEPA filters. They use 222nm far-UVC light technology to continuously kill pathogens in the air and on surfaces within seconds, even while people are present.
Founding team: Kunal Sethi and Saimir Sulaj
UBC affiliation: Kunal Sethi recently graduated with his Bachelors of Applied Science in Civil Engineering from UBC and Saimir Sulaj recently graduated with his Bachelors of Applied Science in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from UBC.
VulcanX
VulcanX is a company that produces low-emission and low-cost hydrogen and carbon black from natural gas. VulcanX has developed a system that produces hydrogen at cost-parity with current technologies, but with low emissions. Their hydrogen will help reduce emissions from natural gas by blending, and it can reduce the emissions from steel making processes, ammonia, and transportation.
Founding team: Dr. Walter Mérida, Dr. Amir Sharafian and Dr. Omar Herrera
UBC affiliation: Dr. Amir Sharafian and Dr. Omar Herrera are staff members at UBC in Applied Science and work as part of the Mérida Lab led by Dr. Walter Mérida in which their venture research is based.
Welcome to the teams!