TechCrunch Disrupt NY startups range from a 3-D printer of live tissue to a robotic bartender.
BioBots(Photo: BioBots)
NEW YORK—Fans of the very funny HBO series Silicon Valley are familiar with AOL’s TechCrunch Disrupt, one of the many events for startups clamoring for attention and funding.
I’ve been patrolling the crowded corridors of the latest New York City version of TC Disrupt. While the odds are stacked against most of the exhibiting companies, here are a few that caught my eye.
*BioBots. It’s no longer science fiction–BioBots sells a desktop 3-D printer that can print live tissue. The company showed off a 3-D printed ear that Vincent van Gogh might have put to good use.
Cofounder Danny Cabrera says traditional 3-D printers use heat and UV radiation that kills cells. BioBots came up with an alternative printing method. It uses visible light to create electrically charged particles that react with biocompatible polymers. Liquid is converted into a solid without damaging the cells.
BioBots developed a cartilage kit with a vial of collagen and the company’s “secret sauce” initiator to get a reaction started.
For now the company is selling its $5,000 printer to academic researchers and labs. The cartilage kit adds $700 to the cost.
BioBots has designs on the pharmaceuticals industry, too. Madeline Winter, a company vice president, explained that you will be able to deliver “not one drug made for a million people, but one drug for one person. My disease is different from your disease.”
Ultimately, perhaps 10 years out, she thinks you’ll be able to print out implantable organs. “What stops you from making a Frankenstein?” asked Winter. “I don’t know, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It could be a really incredible next step.”
*Class Compete. Can an educational game improve your kids’ grades? The folks behind Class Compete say that 40% of students have test anxiety. Their remedy: teach the kids time, pressure and anxiety management skills in age-specific educational games.
“If there’s a 60-question test and you have 60 minutes, no one ever teaches you there’s a cadence or you only need about a minute a question,” says CEO Rahul Mahna. “With all the new standardized tests out there there’s a whole new set of question styles—drag and drop, multiple select, rank order. No student is learning those skills in the classroom.Through our gaming technology we can teach those skills.”
That may be so. But I can’t help but wonder that no matter what test-taking skills an anxious kid masters playing a Class Compete game, he or she may still feel on the spot when taking a test in the classroom. Class Compete charges schools licensing fees. Parents pay $10 per subject for a game.
Somabar is a robotic bartender. (Photo: Edward C. Baig)
*Somabar. You already have a coffee maker or expresso machine. Is a robotic bartender the natural progession? Recent Kickstarter alum Somabar is taking preorders on a Wi-Fi-connected smart bartender that’s capable of making 300 different cocktails.
Pour a mixer or spirit into an empty refillable dishwasher-safe 750ml “Soma pods” and plug each of these containers into the side of the machine. Somabar can electronically detect the ingredients and suggest any number of recipes. Choose a recipe and Somabar will make the cocktail on the spot.
“If you put in ginger beer and then vodka it’ll give you a list and say, “OK, now you can make a Moscow Mule or Madras or you can make etc. etc.’,” said CEO Dylan Purcell-Lowe.
Through a companion app you can share your own drink recipes with others.
Somabar is accepting preorders on its website for $429 and plans to ship in July.
Suffice it to say, the Madras cocktail Somabar made for me (in the interest of journalistic research) hit the spot.
*MassRoots. The 275,000 members of MassRoots are particularly high on this social network. MassRoots is billed as the largest social network for cannabis consumers. People can use the MassRoots app to find smoking buddies and connect to cannabis dispensaries.
CEO Isaac Dietrich acknowledges there’s controversy surrounding such a social network, even with marijuana now legal–or at least decriminalized–in several states. Last year, he says, Apple banned the company’s app from the App Store. After 10,000 users balked, Apple reversed its policy earlier this year, he says.
“Surprisingly, we’ve hit the most resistance from technology VCs and technology companies in Silicon Valley,” Dietrich says. “Those type of VCs refuse to back cannabis-related companies as it could be deemed aiding and abetting the distribution of an illegal substance.” He also says Facebook and Google have banned cannabis-related advertising making it difficult to acquire users.
The company’s stock does trade over-the-counter as a small cap stock under the symbol MSRT. The stock is now at 1.44, up nearly 7.5% over the prior close.
*Nikola Labs. It sounds counterintuitive: use your phone more to gain longer battery life. But that’s what Nikola Labs claims its new $99 iPhone 6 case does. Nikola is launching on Kickstarter in about a month.
The company’s technology, born out of Ohio State University, converts RF energy into DC power. When you use your phone it transmits a lot of RF energy, much of which is wasted into the environment.
Nikola says that it can harvest that RF energy to bolster the battery on the phone by 30% just by you actively talking, watching a YouTube video, surfing the Web or otherwise using the phone. Co-founder Will Zell said that “our mission is to create 100% wireless power solutions for consumers.”
Email: ebaig@usatoday.com; Follow @edbaig on Twitter
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