Company cases
Founded 2018:
VPCIR Bioscience is a biotechnological spin out of Aarhus University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The company is founded together with Mousing & Hede Innovation by four researchers who together have invented a new and better laboratory method to detect disease-causing bacteria in food. The method – Viability Polymerase Circle Reaction, or VPCIR ™. – is patent pending and utilizes the fact that the composition of certain enzymes in the bacterial cell constitutes a unique fingerprint. The VPCIR ™. method is inexpensive, very sensitive and fast, easy to use, and therefore convenient in a laboratory. VPCIR is therefore a very competitive alternative to current methods.
VPCIR Bioscience was in 2020 identified as one of the top 5 emerging food safety startups by startus Insights: 5 Top Emerging Food Safety Startups Imapcting The Industry (startus-insights.com)
VPCIR Bioscience was 2020 by The European Commission the granted the EU ‘Seal of Excellence’ recognizing our technology as a first-class innovation idea worthy of investment. The Seal of Excellence is a quality label awarded to project proposals submitted to Horizon 2020, the EU’s research and innovation funding program, to help these proposals find alternative funding.
VPCIR Bioscience has received funding from a private investor syndicate, Novo Nordisk Fonden as well as from Innovationsfonden
Founded 2018
Plantcarb ApS is a plant biotechnological spin out from Aarhus University and University of Copenhagen founded together with Mousing & Hede Innovation by two scientists who – as the only ones in the world – have developed a method for producing agricultural crops whose starch consists of 100% amylose. Starch is composed of two kinds of molecules. One type branches off and is called amylopectin (~ 75%). The other does not branch out and is called amylose. The two forms have very different properties. Unlike amylopectin, amylose does not dissolve in the stomach for sugar. Amylose therefore prevents type-2 diabetes. And unlike amylopectin, amylose is an excellent raw material for compostable bioplastics. Plantcarb focuses on both food and industry. For food, a 100% amylose crop (HIAMBA®) is developed to be used for flour for bread. For industrial use, a variant of 100% amylose maize is bred.
Plantcarb has received funding from a private investor syndicate and from Innovationsfonden. See also news link: Tre investornetværk bag kapital til den danske sukkersygebekæmper, Plantcarb (keystones.dk)
Founded 2018
Healthycrop is a plant biotechnological spin-out from Aarhus University founded together with Mousing & Hede Innovation, specialized in developing economically important agricultural crops that are naturally resistant to fungal infections, particularly to Fusarium and Aspergillus. The resistance enables a reduction in the pre-harvest use of fungicides, and crops are not contaminated, pre- or post-harvest, with fungal toxins, which are hazardous to animals and humans.
The crops obtain fungal resistance by enhanced Nepenthesin Expression (ENE). Nepenthesin is a naturally occurring protease first identified in the pitcher secretions of plants of the Nepenthes genus, a group of carnivorous plants. The resistance mechanism is non-cytotoxic, it works through inhibition of fungal activity of phytase, an enzyme essential for releasing phosphate required for fungal growth. The result is starvation of the fungus and therefore reduced growth and toxin production. As the inhibition mechanism involves multiple interactions between the inhibitor and the enzyme, the risk of rapid development of fungal resistance is therefore considered very low.
Healthycrop has received funding from a private investor group and from Innovationsfonden.
Founded 2021
BettaSensing is a plant biotechnological spin-out from Aarhus University founded together with Mousing & Hede Innovation, specialized in developing a technology for a fast, easy, and low cost food and beverages flavor screening method. BettaSensing will revolutionize R&D and quality control screening methods used to date in the food and beverage industry. The technology can recognize a product’s taste within seconds, based on its flavor profile. BettaSensing´s sensors are sensitive and change color upon exposure to different mixtures of flavor compounds. The sensors come along with a software, utilizing advanced AI analysis for calculating the overall response of the sensor strip, and creating a unique “fingerprint” to each product. This ability can support faster new flavor development, as well as a rapid and robust quality screening along the process line. The current efforts in collaboration with Carlsberg aim to speed up new beer flavor development. However, our platform is generic, and can be adapted to many other needs and products across the food market e.g. testing dairy product, beverages, oils, water quality and many more.
BettaSensing has won a number of awars and recognitions