From University To Unicorn 2021 by TechSavvy.Media

From University To Unicorn

06-09

20-21

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Research or Business? Why Not Do Both

Excuse Me, But What’s The Purpose?

Investors Are Flocking to Universities 1

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From University To Unicorn

About: From University to Unicorn Danish universities already deliver world-class research in everything from artificial intelligence and quantum computing to cryptography and robots. But how do we link this knowledge to the business world in order to create real change at scale? With the magazine “From University to Unicorn”, we highlight the unique innovation opportunity that comes from the universities. We take a closer look at the students and researchers who translate their knowledge into companies that have the potential to become the next unicorn. How it affects the established business community as well as Denmark’s competitiveness at large. And how the efforts within digital entrepreneurship across universities contribute to shaping the talent pool of the future. Enjoy!

Partners We would like to thank the following partners, sponsors and advertisers for making “From University to Unicorn” possible:

“From University to Unicorn” is produced by TechSavvy Media. Editor in Chief: Sebastian Kjær | Journalists: Erik Lillelund and Sebastian Kjær | Layout: Vratislav Pecka Translation: Hazel Evans and Linda Bruun. Contact: sales@techsavvy.media

Table of content 05 06-09

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University to Unicorn: “There Is Often a Disconnect Between Research and Business, but Why Not Do Both?” University startup Optoceutics is developing a special kind of light that can potentially prevent and treat Alzheimer’s. According to experts, these kinds of startups are exactly what Denmark needs to gain a competitive edge, and we ought to be doing everything possible to encourage them. Alvenir: Research And Open Source Can Be Combined With a Commercial Startup How Syncsense Used Their University Thesis to Kickstart Their Company

12-13

Expert Panel: How Do We Spawn More Succesful Startups From Universities?

14-16

Entrepreneurship On The Syllabus Entrepreneurship has become an important focus area at Danish universities and more and more students gain broad entrepreneurship and innovation competences which do not necessarily rhyme with startups and growth adventures. The aim is “for the students to be able to see their field of study of expertise in a broader perspective. “

Entrepreneurial Hubs Are Increasingly Becoming Part of Danish Universities

18-19

Students at Stibo Accelerator Are Encouraged to Ask: What If?

20-21

Excuse Me, But What’s The Purpose? The priorities of candidates on the job market are changing towards wanting a greater purpose beyond high wages and a company car. Consequently, a company’s mission and role in society will become vital parameters in the competition for talented employees in the future, experts predict.

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Calling All Researchers: You Don’t Have to Stop Seeing Your Kids to Become an Entrepreneur An alternative is needed to the narrative of the all-sacrificing entrepreneur who sets aside everything else in favour of the business. Having a balanced life actually improves your performance – and, in fact, there are more similarities between researchers and entrepreneurs than you might think, according to business psychology advisor and coach, Cecilie Willer.

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Aalborg University-Startup Wants to Revolutionize the Way We Treat Chronic Pain

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Denmark Struggles to Retain International Graduates: “Fancy Phrases like ‘International Outlook’ Aren’t Going to Cut It”

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Innovation Centre Denmark: Turning Danish Ideas Into Global Solutions

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Serial Entrepreneur: Commercialisation Should Be a Success Criterion for Research Scientific breakthroughs may make a big difference to populations and societies. But breakthroughs do not always reach the market because researchers focus more on publishing articles than on commercialising results, says serial entrepreneur Martin Vesterby, who himself has a background as a researcher.

What Is The Danish Word for Silicon Valley?

Cybersecurity Has a Promising Future, and Cyber Hub Wants Denmark to Get a Piece of the Pie

QuasiOS is a Startup on a Mission to Beat Microsoft, with a Newer, More Secure Operating System for Robots

Amunet Studio: From study internship to startup

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Jes Broeng: Entrepreneurs Invited Into The Universities

What Does It Take to Turn Research into Business? At Danish universities, research-born discoveries are increasingly being transformed into spin-out companies but, according to a tech-transfer expert at Aarhus University, it didn’t happen overnight.

AI Ideas Are Booming – But How Do You Protect Them? Investors Are Flocking to Universities: “The Startups That Are Willing to Listen Are The Ones Who’ll Make It” From robotic arms to allergy pills, startup hubs are popping up at universities all over the place and strengthening the bridge between research and entrepreneurship. But how do investors assess which university startups have what it takes? We asked the experts what they look for.

From University To Unicorn

Editorial

Entrepreneurs Invited Into The Universities

Nobel laureate is a brilliant, absent-minded, solitary researcher – according to the traditional image of the academic dream anyway. Fortunately, this is not an accurate reflection of everyday life at the universities, where research is very often carried out in teams and partnerships. A university has several functions, and one function is to be a development lab for future enterprises. Traditionally, the university approach to transfer of knowledge to startups has been for the researcher to take on the role of entrepreneur. Not all researchers are keen to take on this role, however, and success stories are the exception rather than the rule, applying to only a very small percentage of researchers. More importantly, a large number of researchers do wish to see their research used commercially even though they prefer leaving the management of the commercialisation process to others, concentrating their own efforts on continued university research. To capitalise on this great spinout potential, universities across Denmark, supported by the Danish Industry Foundation, have established the Open Entrepreneurship initiative encouraging and supporting commercialisation teams and partnerships – resembling the modern research process, where research is no longer carried out by an army of one either. Open Entrepreneurship is based on US experience showing that, when done the right way, bringing entrepreneurs and researchers together will result in the creation of more startups based on research output and new technology. And these startups will transform research into solutions benefitting individuals, society and the environment. In this connection, it is vital that universities invite entrepreneurs into the

Jes Broeng Programme Director for Open Entrepreneurship and Director for DTU Entrepreneurship (DTU – Technical University of Denmark)

universities to meet the researchers and establish a collaboration which will allow both parties to contribute with their main strengths. The point being that the researchers may continue concentrating on their research while leaving the spinout of research output and technology to the entrepreneurs – and avoid being spun out of the universities themselves! Results are, in effect, achieved through this facilitation of an open relation between university researchers and the business sector. Also, good ideas typically emerge on the frontiers of knowledge, which means that new magic may arise when industry domain knowledge meets the latest technologies from the world of research. We establish a relation where two parties systematically bring their special competences, from very different worlds, to the table with the common goal of setting up a startup or

developing a new business area. This is a lengthy process, and it may take months or even years before the business idea is sufficiently developed and ready for the commercial market. Since the establishment of Open Entrepreneurship in 2017, it has been instrumental in the formation of +60 startups, and many more are in the pipeline. The Open Entrepreneurship initiative is also part of the life science strategy of the Danish government (adopted in May 2021) with a view to commercialising Danish research outputs and creating new life science growth enterprises and jobs. Consequently, I see the continued development of an ecosystem encompassing both researchers and entrepreneurs as an exciting next step for the universities. This development is also taking place in other countries and is, therefore, already a competition parameter. Fortunately, Denmark is well on its way.

Ngoc Mai Nguyen and Marcus Schultz Carstensen

University to Unicorn

“There Is Often a Disconnect Between Research and Business, but Why Not Do Both?” 6

From University To Unicorn

University startup Optoceutics is developing a special kind of light that can potentially prevent and treat Alzheimer’s. According to experts, these kinds of startups are exactly what Denmark needs to gain a competitive edge, and we ought to be doing everything possible to encourage them. Written by Sebastian Kjær

dd as it might sound, strobing lights at particular frequencies can be good for the brain. Researchers at the American elite university MIT discovered this four years ago, after studying the effect of the flashing light in mice with Alzheimer’s. The neurodegenerative disease simply affected the mice at a decreased pace when exposed to strobing lights at a certain frequency one hour a day. At the time, Ngoc Mai Nguyen was pursuing her Ph.D at the University of California, Berkeley. When she first encountered the research, she spotted the potential to help masses of people; there was just one problem to solve first. “In principle, the research demonstrated that stroboscopic light can be therapeutic for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. The problem with strobe lights is, quite simply, that it is a strobing light which is uncomfortable and sometimes unbearable to look at for long durations of time. They can also cause headaches, dizziness and may even trigger epilepsy,” Nguyen explains. She envisioned a solution where the flashing strobe light would be masked with another kind of light, so that the eyes would be unable to detect the flashing, but the brain would still be able to benefit from the strobe. Nguyen’s idea resulted in a joint patent between DTU and UC Berkeley. In 2017, Nguyen was invited by her co-inventor, Jes Broeng (Now director of Entrepreneurship at DTU) to come to DTU and work with a group of students, including Marcus Schultz Carstensen, who should try to bring the idea to life and attempt to build a prototype. An attempt that went much better than expected. “The sponsoring professor actually thought it would take us three years to build this device, but it took us three weeks. All of a sudden, we had this

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Number of DTU-based startups

Source: DTU (Technical University of Denmark)

ugly-looking MVP, that we were able to present to the proof of concept committee at DTU where we were granted a 500K grant,” says Nguyen, and continues: “Instead of pursuing a career in academia after my Ph.D, I completely shifted my trajectory in life, I thought: Now I’m going to build a company.” With Carstensen as one of her co-founder, Nguyen started Optoceutics in 2018. A competitive edge Startups with university roots have become a more common phenomenon in recent years—both those started by graduate students who put their university knowledge into action, and those started as deliberate university spin-outs, i.e. companies based on specific research that has been conducted at the university. Danish universities are also getting better at cultivating a startup environment, and have almost all set up ambitious startup hubs for the benefit of students and researchers who want to pursue their entrepreneurial ideas seriously. Whilst there isn’t a nationwide directory of all the university-based startups, across the country, the number seems

to be increasing. For example DTU has gone from 19 startups in 2013 to a whopping 76 startups in 2019. According to Jasmina Pless, Head of Entrepreneurship at the Danish Chamber of Commerce (Dansk Erhverv), this is a really promising trend. “University spin-outs are of great importance to society, because the kind of business ideas they come up with are based on in-depth research, which means they have a huge potential to succeed commercially, but also to make our future greener, more efficient, or even save lives,” she says, adding that this is the case not just for spin-outs, but all university-inspired startups. Startups generally create new jobs and exports, but the growing number of university startups with their roots firmly in research are uniquely placed to do that and much more. “With these kinds of startups, Denmark is really gaining a competitive edge, especially when the universities collaborate with the established business community, so that the best research can be commercialised and further developed,” says Pless.

A pacemaker for the brain Following the first primitive prototype, Nguyen and Carstensen, together with a growing team of co-founders and specialists, have spent the last few years turning the technology into a fully-fledged company. Today, Optoceutics is a digital therapeutics company, whose targeted light therapy device will, in the long run, be able to treat neurodegenerative and mental illnesses such as dementia, anxiety, depression, and Alzheimer’s. “Our product is like a potential “pacemaker” for the brain - just non-invasive. The signal is transmitted from the strobe light, through the eyes, to the brain, and it’s a surprisingly large signal we can transmit. And it’s a valid treatment method—by now it’s been well documented that light-based neurostimulation can treat Alzheimer’s in mice,” explains Carstensen, co-founder and CTO in Optoceutics. Whether this is also true for humans is something Optoceutics is currently testing through clinical trials. If they succeed, they will be able to provide the world with the first treatment for Alzheimers—a treatment that has an enormously obvious business potential. In the meantime, the company will begin to sell its first neurostimulation device as part of their efforts to gain more insights on how the devices are being utilized by the individuals who need it most. This fully CE marked device allows them, in true startup spirit, to begin generating revenue that can be put towards further development. However, such clinical trials would be too expensive to conduct if funded by product sales alone. Again, in startup spirit, Optoceutics are using their initial sales as clinical trials themselves—collecting feedback and data from their customers—and they are also collaborating with the universities from which the company was born in the first place. “Instead of spending billions of kroner on preclinical and clinical trials, we’re working with researchers at UC Berkeley, DTU, and KU. The trials are being conducted by doctors at Zealand University Hospital, and we’re more like the company who provides the equipment. This pays off

“You use this device for an hour a day. That’s why it’s very important for us that it’s comfortable and easy to use. And that’s where the Evy Light is unique: you can use it whilst you read a book or browse the internet on your computer. It’s a very simple solution to a very complex problem. How well it works, we don’t know yet, but we’re working to validate that,” siger Marcus Carsten, co-founder and CTO at Optoceutics.

in the sense that all the research is public, but it’s also because it makes sense for a startup like us to work with accredited universities and hospitals to ensure that we are properly conducting our trials in an honest and open manner. With the help of the hospitals and institutions Optoceutics is able to move forward much faster than we would otherwise be able to, at a much thinner run rate,” says Carstensen. Research and business go hand in hand As Optoceutics is demonstrating, research and commercialisation don’t have to be kept separate. In fact, they go hand in hand. This kind of symbiosis of research and business is also the case, albeit on a much larger scale, for the by now wellknown robotics cluster in Odense. “It originally started at Lindøværftet [Odense Steel Shipyard] when Mærsk began to invest in automated welding processes. Mærsk build a relatively large unit for this, but they lacked specialised workers, so they went and invested 100

million DKK in a robot center at SDU, and in my opinion that’s how the whole robot cluster started,” says Søren Peter Johansen, Network Manager at Danish Industrial Robot Association (DIRA). With such a double investment—both in the business and university world—it drew employees and students in the field to Odense. Three years later, three of those students founded Universal Robots, which has since become a billion-dollar company and yet another success that leads to more success in the forms of more robot-interested students, research funding and more startups in the field, creating what is known as a ‘cluster’ in Odense. “It’s really a snowball effect,” says Johansen, “you create an environment that attracts the relevant people who begin to get exciting new ideas and go on to create their own projects and inspire even more ideas, and when that kind of innovation is working together with business, the ball really starts rolling quickly.”

From University To Unicorn

like Facebook, but the usual way is to develop a technology that other companies don’t have but that plenty of people need. Our hope is that we can fuel the development of those kind of technologies for Danish companies,” says Riisgaard, and continues: “We are up against enormous players like MIT in Boston, Silicon Valley and Shenzhen in China, where the research investments are way beyond what we can manage here in Denmark. What we can do is collaborate. If, instead of seeing ourselves as eight separate universities, we saw it as a single, unified effort and we were able to coordinate efficiently, then we’d begin to have a better shot with investors, and a chance to take on the big boys. But we can only do that if we work together.”

Søren Peter Johansen Network Manager at Danish Industrial Robot Association

Thomas Riisgaard Managing director at DIREC

Optoceutics was founded 3.5 years ago, and entered the market last year with its first neurostimulation device. The plan is now to get the device approved as a medical treatment in the EU, whilst also reducing the production price.

Bringing advanced technologies together Odense’s robot cluster has become a world famous case, where the combination of successful companies and the most advanced knowledge in robotics make for a budding ecosystem. And, according to the new digital research centre DIREC, Denmark needs more competitive advantages like this, especially when it comes to advanced, digital technologies where development goes at a much higher pace than we’ve previously been used to. “We have to be ahead of our game when it comes to things like AI, big data or IoT. These are the kind of sectors we’re interested in supporting. Denmark might not become the industry leader in every area, but if we don’t stay at the forefront of research, we have no chance of staying afloat,” says Thomas Riisgaard, DIREC’s managing director. With a budget of 275 million DKK for the next five years, DIREC plans to take on the challenges ahead by demanding more collaboration between Danish universities. Given that Denmark is such a small

country, it doesn’t make sense for universities to be researching similar technologies without communicating with each other or working together. “It’s also about connecting those who are conducting slightly different, but complimentary research, for example robotics in Odense and AI in Copenhagen. When you put those two groups together, something entirely new might come out of it, that they would never have come up with alone. Typically, the best researchers aren’t found at a single university but scattered across the country. We want to gather them in a Danish dream team across universities, which can solve the challenges in the digitale field,” Riisgaard says. Meanwhile, DIREC also has a vested interest in bringing research beyond the university walls, both in the form of spinout companies, and in order to give existing companies a competitive advantage. “For a company to really make it big, it has to be able to offer something totally unique. Sure, it can be a strong brand like Nike, or a social network

Real products to real people When Ngoc Mai Nguyen left her research position in order to start a company that would attempt to cure neurodegenerative diseases with light, most of her friends thought she was crazy. Today, Optoceutics are not far off from achieving their mission. And for the founder, it wasn’t a crazy move, but the natural next step after her research. “A startup gave me the opportunity to test my research and ideas in a completely different way. Creating Optoceutics allowed us to build products that are based in science and tested in clinical trials - while simultaneously taking these products and putting them into the hands of real people. People who can provide us with the feedback and information that we need to continue developing solutions for some of the world’s most challenging disorders,” she says. Nor does Nguyen feel like she’s left research. She’s just moved it from the university to a startup. “There is often a disconnect between research and business, but why not do both? We’re conducting research whilst building a company and that means we can test our product in ‘the real world’ sooner. University research makes an impact, but usually at a much slower speed than is possible in business,” she says.

Sponsored: This article is made in cooperation with Digital Tech Summit

In addition to offering high-performance speech recognition for niche-specific needs, Alvenir also offers unprecedented transparency: the result of its speech recognition can be traced back through metadata showing how the machine arrived at a specific recognition.

Alvenir: Research And Open Source Can Be Combined With a Commercial Startup The startup Alvenir has built a scalable platform for speech recognition based on research from DTU. A platform that already speaks better Danish than Google and Amazon. The goal is a big business, yet the language models behind it are made available to others for free through open source.

hether your digital voice assistant is called Siri, Google or Alexa, you have probably come across some funny suggestions as to what the assistant thinks you’ve told it. Speech recognition is complicated, which means it hasn’t been super lucrative to invest in developing models for a small language like Danish. But in 2019, a group of researchers and thesis students at DTU set out to improve Danish speech recognition with the project “Danspeech”. “Danspeech is an open-source project that springs from my and Rasmus Arpe Fogh Egebæk’s master thesis. It culminates in some models for speech recognition in Danish, and it has become a very nice showcase of how deep tech can move the needle: When we started three years ago, we were very much in doubt about whether you could compete with the big tech companies when you did not have large amounts of data and a lot of money to throw after training the models. But today our model is better at Danish than Google,” says Martin Carsten Nielsen. When the thesis was finished, he actually got a regular job. But then he was brought back to DTU with an offer

to explore the business potential of the technology for speech recognition, which he had helped develop. And after several grants from DTU and the Innovation Fund to explore the market potential and build the software, he is now co-founder of the startup Alvenir, which wants to make speech recognition mainstream in Danish. The broad potential is in the niche With Danspeech, Alvenir got a language model that is better at Danish than the big tech giants. But at the same time, the model is published as ‘open-source’ and therefore available to everyone - which makes it a smaller competitive advantage than one might think. On the other hand, the founders of the startup themselves have been responsible for the research behind the language models. They know it better than anyone else, and this has enabled them to build a platform around the models, which allows them to quickly target and train speech recognition for particular niches. “Transcription in itself is rarely super value-creating - it is the analysis of the transcript that makes the difference. That is why we build everything modularly, and

over the past year, we have built a flexible and scalable Machine Learning Operations platform. This enables us to quickly and efficiently specialize our language recognition and conduct analysis in various domains - e.g. the healthcare industry, the financial sector, etc.,” says Nielsen. While Alvenir will probably offer simple transcription in a broad sense, they expect the biggest business potential to be their ability to easily update the database and thus train speech recognition for niche purposes - including the financial sector. A sector that is heavily regulated and therefore also highly dependent on speech recognition being correct if it is to be utilized in making the sector more efficient. Which gives Alvenir and their platform’s ability to learn “finance-Danish” fast a competitive edge. “Right now, for example, the banks are recording broker calls between each other. This generates an enormous amount of audio data, which we can add a huge value to just by having it transcribed reliably so that it is searchable,” explains Nielsen. Open-source supports the business While the language models being made available as open-source doesn’t add to Alvenirs competitiveness, the co-founder still applauds it. Not only because it has been developed with public funding, but also because he has personally been an enthusiastic member of the open-source movement himself and thus seen its advantages. “It is also a statement. We think that the basic language models should be open. We might be able to hold on to it for a while, but at some point, someone else will just make it readily available. Instead, it benefits us to be a part of the open-source community - and then we would rather compete on other parameters,” Nielsen says. In addition, he gives a lot of credit to DTU in Alvenir even existing as a startup today. “In theory, we could have developed it ourselves, but I think a very big part of doing deep tech is that someone provides security. Another fact is, that we basically started out with a cool technology for speech recognition - and had no idea about doing business. It has taken some maturing for me to even be able to sit here today and know what a product/ market-fit is. And I do not think that maturation would have come without DTU,” says Martin Carsten Nielsen.

From University To Unicorn

Sponsored: This article is made in cooperation with Digital Tech Summit

Research at startup speed:

How Syncsense Used Their University Thesis to Kickstart Their Company worked hard and produced some impressive results as students, which they were able to develop and turn into a company. They remain the owners of the results they collected during the thesis project, which included a report they could show to hospital management: proof that their VR solution could actually make a difference for in-patients. It was a promising business case.

A sensor developed by SyncSense, that transforms an analog workout machine into a way to move through a virtual world.

Syncsense is a startup whose VR solution is by now well established in Denmark—not least because the founders conducted a viability study as part of their Master’s thesis, which in turn caught the attention of the unique professional network at the university. With just a little pedalling on a stationary exercise bike, a bleak day at the hospital can become an exploration around Amalienborg Castle or along Møns Klint. Hospital patients who are otherwise unable to go out are able to experience the world, thanks to a VR headset and sensor technology from the startup Syncsense. “Exercise is more when you get to do it inside films or memory-evoking virtual environments like nature and cities. And because these environments only materialise when you exercise—for example on a stationary bike—it’s an excellent motivation to move. In this way, our technology supports the work of qualified healthcare professionals and can be part of patients’ existing rehabilitation, physical therapy and treatment programs,” says Simon Bruntse Andersen, CEO and co-founder of Syncsense. A solution that not only makes exercise more fun—especially for hospitalised elderly patients—but also improves their recovery times following a surgery, because they have a greater incentive to exercise, not to mention a reminder of the

experiences that await them outside the hospital walls. Since the commercial launch of Syncsense’s product last autumn, the startup has made a name for itself in the Danish market, where their client list includes eight hospitals and eight municipalities. This was the plan ever since the founders began working on the idea as part of their studies at Copenhagen University years ago. How viable is it? It’s no coincidence that the startup chose to develop a solution specifically designed for elderly in-patients, as Steen Petersen, Syncsense’s other co-founder, has a background as a physiotherapist. This is where he first realised how difficult it was to keep the elderly active whilst they are in-patients at a hospital. The two founders began to work on the idea during their Master’s degree, with the intention that it could eventually end up as a business venture. “Beore we could start developing anything, we needed to conduct a preliminary study. A lot of startups skip this stage because it can be time consuming and expensive—both for the startups and those involved in the study. But luckily we were able to do ours when we were students, as part of our Master’s thesis project,” explains Bruntse Andersen. The two thesis (now business) partners

Research at startup speed After their thesis project, the two founders continued to develop their ideas at the life sciences incubator ‘SUND Hub’ at Copenhagen University. They also made good use of the network they established during their studies, including their thesis tutors, who are also chief physicians at a number of Danish hospitals—both in order to boost business, but also to continue researching how the product could support the health sector. “It can be difficult for startups to establish such a network, and especially difficult to get funding without these kinds of collaborations. We’re lucky that we have been able to draw up formal contracts with several researchers and hospitals and we can thank our connection to the university for that,” says Bruntse Andersen. This is how Syncsense managed to establish a solid research basis for its product on a startup budget. And, as the company matures, the tables start to turn: now any further research can benefit from being able to access Syncsense’s market reach, for example via their ‘living labs’ in nursing homes and hospitals. “It goes two ways. University researchers also want to be able to test things outside the lab, and to apply theories and ideas in real life. What we’re able to offer is application-oriented research and clinical trials, which can only really create value when a real patient is using the technology. We’ve now reached the point where we can investigate the results of the latest research in real life, and it makes a lot of sense for us that we can help the universities with this,” concludes Bruntse Andersen.

Sponsored: This article is made in cooperation with Stibo Accelerator and Fonden for Entreprenørskab

Expert Panel:

How Do We Spawn More Succesful Startups From Universities? Everybody wants more successful, fast-growing startups to be built on top of the wealth of knowledge universities continuously generate. But how do we do that? And what will it mean to the established business community? We’ve asked four experts - including some of the partners making “From University to Unicorn” possible.

Jasmina Pless Chief Consultant for Entrepreneurship Policy at the Danish Chamber of Commerce

How do we transform research from universities into new, successful companies at an accelerated pace? In Denmark, the state spends 20 billion DKK on research annually. First and foremost, we need to bridge the gap between research environments and businesses to ensure, that research spendings also end up as commercial solutions. At the same time, we need to make it easier to extract patents from the universities in order to make them a part of commercial business plans. Danish universities are a breeding ground for numerous entrepreneurial ideas and startups. It just takes a long time. For that reason, the Danish Chamber of Commerce suggests a fast track solution for intellectual properties, which will change the current cumbersome and bureaucratic procedures in spinning out a company from a university. What will that mean to established businesses? It’s important to make it attractive for Danish growth companies to invest in research. This is the

foundation for new solutions which contributes to making established companies more efficient and reducing their CO2 emission in a commercially sustainable way. Established companies from Denmark is constantly in an arms race with foreign companies which makes them reliant on innovation from research-heavy spinouts from the universities if they want to stay competitive. If we succeed in breeding innovative startups from Danish universities, this will automatically benefit the existing companies in Denmark. What is your role? The Danish Chamber of Commerce works toward making Denmark the best place to start a company in the world. In the spring, we published 28 recommendations to ensure the right conditions for Danish entrepreneurs. Several recommendations have been integrated into actual proposals from political parties.

From University To Unicorn

How do we transform research from universities into new, successful companies at an accelerated pace? In the first place, we need to invite students into established companies and let them work on cases from “the real world”. This allows them to use their theoretical knowledge and forces them to come up with innovative solutions. Solutions that can survive on market terms and not just in theory. Karsten Dehler Director, Stibo Accelerator

Emilie Normann Head of Research, Analysis and Higher Education, Danish Foundation for Entrepreneurship

What will that mean to established businesses? By consciously giving young talents the framework to challenge the status quo, companies force themselves to accelerate their innovation and not always do, what they usually do. It’s a unique opportunity for established enterpris-

How do we transform research from universities into new, successful companies at an accelerated pace? We do that by working more coherently and holistically. We have some great and highly relevant educations that prepare students to work with entrepreneurship, and those educations need to be strengthened. Entrepreneurship hubs with mentors and access to established businesses are important. And the universities need to involve students-entrepreneurs in the innovation projects, they are already doing with established enterprises. Universities are the obvious place to teach students about strategic thinking and entrepreneurship toward societal challenges like sustainability. Actually, I don’t think we can teach that better anywhere else. What will that mean to established businesses? Established corporations are very interested in

Rikke Lynge Storgaard Programme manager, Spin-outs Denmark

How do we transform research from universities into new, successful companies at an accelerated pace? Danish universities produce new knowledge, new technologies and assist young researchers, who have the courage to solve some of the challenges we face in business and society at large. Recently, the eight Danish universities have co-initiated the “Spin-outs Danmark” programme aimed at establishing even more research-based spin-out companies and researchers with commercial interests. Researchers who are supported on their journey from research to startup with education, access to relevant networks, investors, mentoring and financial support. What will that mean to established businesses? Investment in research and new technologies is crucial for Danish companies’ competitiveness and growth. In that regard, the universities play an essential

es to look into the horizon and discover blind spots in their current operations. This allows them to ask themselves - in the most positive way - if they are certain their direction is the right one, or if there are new opportunities on the horizon that should make them reconsider their path. What is your role? Our role is to establish a continuous influx of young talents to established businesses by working alongside partners across the industries and sectors, we are working with. By collaborating with Danish universities we create an innovative ecosystem that functions as a launchpad where we believe, the best learnings are obtained through experimenting.

working even closer with universities toward innovation, and I think entrepreneurship is a great focal point for this collaboration. The better students get at thinking like entrepreneurs and translating innovation to business opportunities and solutions, the greater value for companies. What is your role? In Denmark, we have a shared goal of exposing even more young people to entrepreneurship through their education. As a national research centre for entrepreneurship, we support the universities in working more entrepreneurial - especially by strengthening entrepreneurship in their educations. We are continuously getting into more and new settings which might not be aware of the relevance of entrepreneurship to them - e.g. in social sciences and faculties of humanities, which also have a huge potential.

part in presenting the pipeline of research, technology and the talents businesses depend on in the future. Even a temporary interruption of these investments will eventually mean a significant weakening of Danish companies’ international competitiveness and ability to find solutions for challenges like sustainability. What is your role? Through the Spin-outs Denmark programme, the Danish universities strengthen their collaboration with businesses as well as other significant stakeholders in the ecosystem with an ambition to create more, strong and viable spin-outs from Danish universities. At the same time, the programme repræsents the Danish universities’ contribution to strengthening the community of smaller growth startups, which has the potential to solve the challenges of the future.

Written by Erik Lillelund

ver the last few decades, entrepreneurship and innovation have become more and more important. This has also been felt in the education system where an increased focus on these topics is expected in order to ensure that society – across the private and the public sector – can benefit from an innovative and enterprising workforce. For entrepreneurship is not necessarily to start a business or invent a new product. It is the ability to discover, assess and exploit new opportunities – a way of thinking and working that as many people as possible should master if we are to solve the major societal challenges we are facing. “In Denmark, we are dependent on innovation and the ability to spot a good idea. If we succeed with nuancing the understanding of entrepreneurship in the education system, supporting the value of entrepreneurial competences in a broader sense, there is a huge potential for development in both the public sector

and the existing business community. It will help us solve some of the major societal challenges of today. We need more startup activities and entrepreneurship across the board,” says Emilie Normann, Head of Research, Analysis and Higher Education at the Danish Foundation for Entrepreneurship. The Danish Foundation for Entrepreneurship is a private business foundation financed primarily by a partnership between the Ministry of Industry, Business and Financial Affairs, the Ministry of Children and Education, the Ministry of Higher Education and Science, and the Ministry of Culture with the purpose of strengthening competences in innovation, entrepreneurship and self-employment throughout the education system. The ambition is for innovation and entrepreneurship to become a natural part of teaching at all levels of education. And ensuring the ability of all pupils and students to think innovatively, see opportunities and translate ideas into value, requires a

Emilie Normann Head of Research, Analysis and Higher Education at the Danish Foundation for Entrepreneurship

From University To Unicorn

broader understanding of entrepreneurship as a whole, Normann believes. “One of our main tasks is to provide a nuanced insight into what entrepreneurship is. It is a lot of things and does not necessarily involve founding a startup. We aim to produce graduates who can create value and change across the board. It is quite possible to innovate, launch new initiatives or do things in a smarter way within an already established framework and still have a positive effect on society. You don’t need to establish and register your own company to do that,” Normann says. This point resonates with the Danish universities. In the university year 2019/2020, approximately 48,000 students, across all higher education institutions in Denmark, received entrepreneurship education through nearly 1,100 different courses on the subject. In 2010/2011, this figure was 18,100 students. This development means that more and more graduates will be able to put their

fields of study into play in new ways. “A student of geography who works intelligently with data can create value in collaboration with stakeholders outside his or her field of study. It’s very much about being able to see your field or expertise in a broader context. And this is one of the competences we are trying to help universities promote,” Normann says. UCPH students learn the method behind innovation According to the UCPH’s (University of Copenhagen) own figures, 300 new companies originate from their three locations in Copenhagen each year. But it’s important that the UCPH students acquire competences that go beyond establishing a specific company or product if they are to contribute positively to the society of the future. They need to understand the whole methodology of working with big challenges and solutions, the teachers of entrepreneurship at UCPH Science say.

“At UCPH, we always work problem-oriented based on major societal challenges – everything from climate and fossil fuels to food waste and plastic in the oceans. This is the breeding ground for what the students work with for the rest of the semester. We always start by saying that if you already have a ready-made solution in mind, you must forget about it. Because the purpose of the course is not getting ready to establish a startup. The purpose is to learn about the elements of an innovation process. A way of thinking,” says Teis Hansen, professor of innovation and entrepreneurship at the university. “It is mostly about facilitating a process. Throughout the course, the students combine reading academic texts within their field of study with learning how to work problem-oriented rather than solution-oriented. The academic approach is never totally abandoned in favour of a more practical approach, “ the teachers say. “Overall, we work from the old saying that if you have an hour to solve a problem, you should spend 55 minutes understanding the problem and 5 minutes solving it. Consequently, we are trying to improve the competences of students in areas such as data collection and problem formulation, identification and understanding,” says Teis Hansen. This approach enables students to create value across sectors, fields and businesses. Also outside the startup ecosystem. “Innovation and entrepreneurship are at least as important outside the startup world. We emphasise the fact that entrepreneurship isn’t necessarily associated with a monetary value. Users aren’t necessarily customers but may as well be citizens of a municipality or employees of a large company. In the public sector, for example, it is just as important to ask: “How could this service be provided in a different way?” says Ghita Dragsdahl Lauritzen, PhD and Assistant Professor at UCPH Science, specializing in innovation and cross-sectoral partnerships. From soft skills to hard value At Roskilde University (RUC), the entrepreneurship programme is based on their hallmark pedagogical model called Problem-oriented Project Learning (PPL),

which values group and project work, participant control and interdisciplinarity, says Araceli Bjarklev, who is responsible the RUC Entrepreneurship Lab. “At RUC it is possible to work project-based in all semesters, and the students have the opportunity to cooperate with the business community on specific projects which they may, for instance, find in our project bank where companies in search of a solution to a challenge register.” “We see ourselves as part of an ecosystem. As soon as startups from other hubs in the ecosystem grow a little larger, they experience scaling challenges, and these challenges become collaborative projects for the students at RUC. The companies often have the necessary technical skills but lack everything from a communications strategy, building a product community and user involvement to a sustainability strategy (including regulations, planning and implementation),” says Araceli Bjarklev. Projects and cooperation have high priority. Every semester, RUC hosts a so-called innovation camp where, based on project descriptions, companies are matched with students or researchers. Since the initiative was launched in 2020, 400 students have participated and a total of 50 collaborative projects have been initiated. The students may integrate a collaborative project into their studies as a module of up to 15 ECTS points. The University houses a centre for social entrepreneurship (Centret for Socialt Entreprenørskab) and offers a master’s programme within the same field. And the intersection of hard data and soft skills is one of RUC’s great strengths. “The many humanities and social studies students understand that innovation is not just about the invention of a new robot or pill”, Bjarklev says. “We encourage our students to become self-employed entrepreneurs, but also know that many of our students have soft skills which are extremely useful for innovation within existing frameworks or partnerships; to develop new models, new theories or new ways of collaborating across different sectors. Mastering the interdisciplinary approach is becoming more and more valuable as socio-economic solutions are gaining momentum,“ Bjarklev says.

Teis Hansen Professor of innovation and entrepreneurship at UCPH

Ghita Dragsdahl Lauritzen PhD and Assistant Professor at UCPH Science

Araceli Bjarklev RUC Entrepreneurship Lab

From University To Unicorn

Sponsored: This article is made in cooperation with Fonden for Entreprenørskab

The Kitchen is currently home to 150 startups, 30 students are doing an ‘internship in their own business’ and approximately 10 percent of entrepreneurs at The Kitchen have a specially designed ‘Career Program’ that enables them to study and run their business simultaneously.

Entrepreneurial Hubs Are Increasingly Becoming Part of Danish Universities Never before has it been so easy to study at university and run your own business at the same time—a growing tendency that reaps rewards for startup communities, universities and society alike. 2020 saw the opening of ‘The Kitchen’, a dedicated entrepreneurial space for students and researchers at Aarhus University to meet and work on their business projects. And the fun doesn’t stop there: entrepreneurship has also begun to work its way into the rest of the university. In fact, Aarhus University has developed a 2025 strategy that aims for business and innovation to play a greater role in university life, and similar initiatives can be seen at other Danish universities. While The Kitchen in Aarhus is first and foremost a place where students can go to cultivate their entrepreneurial ideas and projects, it also meets students where they are—on many university courses, students now receive teaching in entrepreneurship as part of their education. “We established a committee, who are responsible for ensuring that The Kitchen and, more generally, a focus on innovation, is spread out across the university. The intention is that innovation should

be an integral part of the structure of university life, it’s no longer just this thing on the side, but is integrated into everything else,” says Jeppe Dørup, head of The Kitchen, formerly Science & Innovation Attaché at Innovation Center Denmark in Silicon Valley. Now that entrepreneurship is a regular part of university programs, as well as offered as an extracurricular option, students who might not have otherwise seen themselves as entrepreneurs are becoming increasingly aware of the possibility of entrepreneurship as a potential career path. And if they want to explore that possibility further, they can head to The Kitchen, where they can, amongst other things, do an ‘internship in their own business’, or even get a specially designed ‘Career Program’, allowing them to run their business alongside studies—a similar setup that has previously been offered to elite athletes in education. “The interest in entrepreneurship is growing and with all these initiatives such as the 2025 strategy, The Kitchen and various educational programs, we’re sending a clear signal of support to the students and the business community. American universities have been doing this kind of thing for the past couple of decades,” says Dørup.

Getting with the program Although Danish universities are focussing more than ever before on innovation and entrepreneurship, the goal is not necessarily to generate lots of startups, but instead to teach entrepreneurial thinking for all students, who could also go on to become innovators employed at established companies. According to The Danish Foundation for Entrepreneurship (FFE), the original innovation hubs at universities are now becoming an ingrained part of the main syllabus at many universities. “Most of these entrepreneurial spaces started up as separate entities—something for students to seek out if they were interested in learning about entrepreneurship alongside their studies. Little by little, we’re seeing how these hubs and the teaching at universities are becoming more symbiotic,” says Emilie Normann, Head of Research, Analysis and Higher Education at FEE. She points out that, as our understanding of what happens in entrepreneurial environments has grown, so has the interest in teaching entrepreneurship and innovation. It’s seen as a way to bring students closer to the world of business. One such example of how entrepreneurial teaching is becoming a more integrated part of university degrees is at Copenhagen University, where a record number of 970 ECTS points were earned by students in 2020, solely through activities conducted at the entrepreneurial hub ‘UCPH Innovation Hubs’. Everyone’s a winner According to Normann, Danish universities have very good reasons for moving towards a more integrated entrepreneurial education. “It goes two ways,” she says, “hub environments get more diverse and so do university degrees. Entrepreneurship isn’t just about the actual act of starting a business. It’s about a way of thinking that gives graduate students the capabilities to start new businesses as well as innovate within existing ones. We’re getting the next generation ready to develop the future.” “Everyone’s a winner. The universities, the entrepreneurial communities surrounding them and, at the end of the day, society as a whole,” Normann concludes.

Sponsored: This article is made in cooperation with Stibo Accelerator

Students at Stibo Accelerator Are Encouraged to Ask:

What If? IT company Stibo invites Master’s students to think up crazy ideas and radical innovation for their thesis projects.

t’s the smallest supermarket in the city, but it’s also the most technologically advanced. When you choose a product from the shelf, smart price tags guide you to an alternative product, better suited to your allergies or your budget. And when you put that product in your shopping basket, it registers automatically and the tablet affixed to it loads suggestions for potential meals you could make with the product you’ve just chosen.

A futuristic scenario indeed, but the experimental supermarket, ’Stibo 1000’ was up and running back in 2016—a collaboration between IT company Stibo Systems, the supermarket chain Rema 1000 and three Master’s students studying IT Product Development at Aarhus University. “The initial idea for our thesis project was to find out how we could bring digital features to a physical business such as a supermarket, instead of it

From University To Unicorn

always going the other way around, where businesses are moving more and more online. From there we pretty much had free reign to define the concepts,” says Søren Lundtoft, one of the students behind the Stibo 1000 project, alongside Laurits Langberg and Anders Nies. Innovation from within Many thesis projects are conducted in collaboration with companies, to ensure real-world business relevance, but when Stibo Accelerator invites students to collaborate on projects, the goal is not necessarily to solve a problem the company currently has, but to experiment and inspire more radical innovation within the company. “For us, it’s such a privilege to work with young students who think differently and believe anything is possible. We’re up against the same obstacles as every large organisation: we know we have to think creatively and out of the box, but we’re also stuck in our routines, our repetitive Monday mornings. That’s why we are so open to radical ideas and innovation—they are essential for our own learning in the company, and for developing a culture of curiosity at Stibo,” says Karsten Dehler, director of Stibo Accelerator. A total of 215 students have been through the accelerator so far, and have tackled questions like “Would ultra-transparency in retail actually work?” It’s this kind of approach that encourages students in the accelerator to explore not just the trials and tribulations of today and tomorrow, but to begin to shape the future in five to 10 years from now. It’s not about new products For the Stibo 1000 project, Rema 1000’s management were initially presented with 14 concepts—the wildest of which involved the customer sitting in a shopping trolley, wearing a VR headset and then shooting at the products they wanted from the shelves in a virtual world. For Dehler, this paints a very good picture of what Stibo Accelerator is all about. “If the success criterion was to develop a product that could be put into use tomorrow, then this project would have been a total failure. But that was never the intention. The intention was to test out ideas and demonstrate the potential for what could be done,” he says, add-

An interactive price tag, built with 25 Raspberry Pi minicomputers, that guides the customer around the four breakfast shelves in Stibo 1000.

ing that parts of Stibo 1000 project have today, a whole five years later, become a reality for Amazon Go and Wholefoods in the USA, which shows just how good an indicator the project was for where things were headed in the future. As for what happens to the thesis projects conducted at Stibo afterwards, they can become everything from inspiration catalogues to concrete commercial concepts, entire new startup companies or a full-time job at Stibo. The latter was the case for Søren Lundtoft, who looks back at his thesis period fondly. “Some people prefer a concrete project where they have to solve a tangible task for a company, but for those who prefer to look at a field of technology and imagine all the many possibilities, the ‘what ifs’, Stibo Accelerator is a great place to really test out those ideas,” he says.

Stibo •

•

Stibo Group began as a printing company in Aarhus over 225 years ago. Today, the company’s subsidiary, Stibo Systems, is one of the leading master data management solutions in the world and the group employs 1,700 people across 21 countries. With Stibo Accelerator, the foundationowned company is able to offer students a place to conduct businessoriented thesis projects. In addition to an office space and lunch, writing a thesis at Stibo includes access to the company’s network of partners as well the possibility to run ideas by any of Stibo’s own employees. 40 of the 200+ Master’s students who have been through the accelerator over the years have consequently been employed at Stibo.

he world is constantly turning and rapidly changing, and enterprises will have to change direction or completely redefine themselves if they want to be able to attract the most talented candidates for job openings. Conventional benefits like high wages or an impressive job title will no longer suffice; more and more candidates are demanding purpose. Meaningfulness. Impact. “When we started The Hub in 2015, this was not a topic of conversation anywhere, but since then many employers have integrated the Global Goals, i.e. the Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs, into their DNA, and I dare say that it is no longer possible to establish a successful startup or attract talents without a clearly defined mission. You can not have one without the other,” says Ninna Wicki Olsen-Stryhn, CEO of The Hub, a recruitment platform for startups. Three years ago, the platform was used by 600 Nordic SDG enterprises.

This number has now increased to 1,655, which is reflected in the actions of the candidates: At The Hub, the number of applications received by SDG enterprises exceeds the number of applications received by other enterprises by on average 25 per cent. And though the trend has mostly applied to the younger generation, the older candidates now seem to be adopting the purpose-driven agenda as well. “Five years ago, this phenomenon was thought to affect only young people, but more and more candidates between 35 and 50 seek out jobs based on these parameters. It’s no longer a youthful thing to chase after purpose, rather it’s becoming a general candidate expectation of employers,” the CEO of The Hub explains. The senior candidates have become parents Emil Fuglsang, co-founder and COO (Chief of Operations Officer) in Matter,

From University To Unicorn

There is no one answer as to how this trend has found its way from the younger to the older generation, but parenthood has something to do with it, Fuglsang believes. “Previously, when recruiting for senior positions, it was more difficult to entice the older generation away from high wages and lucrative benefits packages, but this has also become easier and easier.” “We often hear that their awareness of these challenges has increased because of their children questioning what they do. They want to be able to come home from work and look their children in the eye,” the COO of Matter says.

Ninna Wicki Olsen-Stryhn CEO of The Hub

Emil Fuglsang Co-founder and COO in Matter

a supplier of sustainability data and advanced analysis platforms for the financial sector, has noticed the same development. Matter’s mission of driving a positive change draws especially young talent to the fintech startup. “We’ve never had any difficulty attracting young candidates – even the most sought-after candidates with a lot of other job offers choose to come work

with us because they are looking for a meaningful job,” Fuglsang says and elaborates: “The same applies to students and interns, who were previously more drawn to large, well-known companies and brands to boost their CV. Now it’s our impression that it’s considered just as prestigious to work for a purpose-driven company – almost regardless of size.”

Still some way to go As the major challenges for society have increasingly become part of the corporate agenda, the so-called ESG evaluations (environmental, social and governance) have become very popular. They have been developed as a response to the fact that financial accounts no longer suffice for the value assessment of large corporations. In June, the global accounting firm PwC announced an investment of about DKK 78 bn and 100,000 new jobs over a period of five years to meet the demand from enterprises and organisations for various kinds of ESG certificates. Despite this development, there is still some way to go, according to Olsen-Stryhn – especially where investors are concerned. “We still see that the majority of startups don’t market themselves as purpose-driven. Most startups have realised that this does not open the doors to venture capital investment funds as they are still a bit reluctant about this new trend. Angel investors, who are more likely to include soft values like the feelings associated with a project into their considerations, are easier to convince,” she says. “Many investor networks and capital investment funds still have ”old-school” decision-makers, who would like to support a good cause, but struggle to see how profit and purpose can go hand in hand. So, at this stage, it’s necessary to keep challenging their beliefs and providing more information. To that end, we need a number of success stories and to keep talking about it,” Olsen-Stryhn claims.

Cecilie Willer, business psychology advisor, coach and founder of the company Today.io

hours a week. At least. No family parties, that goes without saying. And then you must just kick ass and hustle your way to hypergrowth. You may suffer from stress or a stomach ulcer along the way, but then, once the startup has

become a success, you can order your well-deserved Porsche. The narrative of the all-sacrificing entrepreneur is alive and kicking. And it can seem a far cry from the safe environment at university that researchers and students are asked to leave to turn their research into a business. “At the university there is quite a lot

From Digital University Tech Summit To Unicorn 2021

and Health Tech Hub Copenhagen. She has, therefore, seen many examples of what it takes to make the transition from researcher to founder. And, in her opinion, there are a lot of similarities between the two identities: “Startup founders tie their identity to their startup and their work, and so do musicians and researchers. They get totally wrapped up in their work, which is, of course, often essential to creating something amazing. But, unless they find a way to unplug from work, they risk getting too engulfed – and then it will be harder to cope when pressure and stress set in and they lose perspective,” says Willer. Both entrepreneurs and researchers are most likely overachievers who set high goals and reach them. They don’t need to learn to work hard. They need to learn to relax and strike a balance between being engulfed and detaching themselves – an exercise already known to many researchers, Willer states.

of work pressure, but planning your PhD is easier than planning a startup. In a startup, some periods are simply chaotic and you never know what the day will bring,” says Cecilie Willer, business psychology advisor, coach and founder of the company Today.io. But she also believes that another narrative is needed about doing ones best as an entrepreneur. A narrative that is not so much about competitive hustle and bloody capitalism. “Entrepreneurship is the extreme sport of the business world. Therefore, you need to take care of yourself and remember that you are both an entrepreneur and a human being. Some people seem to think that if you have a very strong mental health, you must not be performing intensively enough. And to me, this is a very strange notion since man is not a machine and we have long known that we perform better if we’re happy and healthy. Only, this seems to have been more or less forgotten in entrepreneurial ecosystems,” she says. You are your work Among other things, Cecilie Willer coaches founders of startups in PreSeed Ventures, BioInnovation Institute

Learn to ask stupid questions The greatest barrier, she believes, lies in the transition from identifying with the role of researcher to embracing a more commercial identity. “Some researchers feel they’re saying goodbye to a very safe life, taking a leap into something that is very uncertain. They feel they’re saying goodbye to an identity, but really it’s more about adding a new identity to the old one,” she says, and continues: “One of the main issues I see is that often researchers are used to being the specialists who have all the answers. When they become founders, they’re suddenly the ones asking stupid questions – they don’t have the answers anymore when it comes to starting and running a business,” she says. However, she also believes that it is wrong to think that it’s necessary to go from being a researcher to being a superseller in order to turn knowledge into a commercial enterprise. “In the classic entrepreneurial journey, a group of young men with an idea start a business and follow it all the way. For a researcher, the role of entrepreneur is more diverse. Maybe only 50 per cent of the time is spent on entrepreneurial activities, as Head of Science, for instance – so there’s still time to focus on research,” she says.

Aalborg University-Startup Wants To Revolutionize the Way We Treat Chronic Pain A couple of years ago, the people behind REDO - Neurosystems did not know each other. But after AAU matched the founders with each other and armed them with a series of groundbreaking research findings, the company is getting ready to enter the market next year with a revolutionary technology that can reduce the pain of chronic pain patients Written by Erik Lillelund

nlike most university startups, Tor Emanuelsen, Mathis Rosenberg Sørensen, and Morten Kirkegaard did not really know each other. But after Morten as a student had helped publish some groundbreaking research results in a research group, AAU immediately began searching for enterprising students and alumni to match him with. The research could become a new startup with the right people at the helm, the university believed. “In many university startups, people have done a study project or written a thesis together. But we got to know each other through SEA (Student Entrepreneurship AAU). The university had their hands on a series of interesting neurological research results and thought that there was a great potential for commercialization,” says Mathis Sørensen, COO and co-founder of REDO - Neurosystems. Based on existing research, the three AAU-people behind REDO - Neurosystems have developed a technology that can visualize pain-related brain activity

in real time. And although the breakthrough is still being tested, it bodes well for the pain patients of the future, who through physical and mental rehabilitation can learn to manage the brain activities related to the pain - and in the long run control it. The entrepreneurs have very different backgrounds: Morten has a master’s degree in Translational Medicine and is clinically responsible in REDO, Tor has a master’s degree in Organization and Strategy and CEO and Mathis has a master’s degree in Communication and is responsible for communications. In 2020 Rasmus Lund, cand.it in Games and Interactive Media Design, joined the company and works as a CTO. A varied bunch. “One of our strengths is definitely that we do not have internal competition. We each come with our own background and competencies, and this gives a completely natural division of responsibilities. It is to a large extent SEA’s merit that managed to bring different skillsets together in one unit,“ says Mathis Rosenberg Sørensen.

From University To Unicorn

Martin Würtz Vinther (Danske Bank) with Mathis Rosenberg Sørensen, Tor Emanuelsen, Morten Kirkegaard og Thor Buhl (EY) from REDO at the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year-awardshow.

The open entrepreneurial environment was the key The research behind REDO was carried out at the Department of Medicine and Health Technology, where innovation and entrepreneurship have long been at focus point. So far, the effort has resulted in 20 spinout companies, 60 patent applications and 120 reported inventions, 25 of which have been sold. And according to the head of department, Kim Dremstrup, REDO is a product of precisely the same open environment in AAU Health Hub. “It is important that we keep our research environments open to students and help them see the opportunities in entrepreneurship and innovation. It is in their studies and project work that the future takes shape. This is where they work with society’s health challenges and seek out possible solutions that can strengthen our public health in the long run. We strengthen all these aspects in the AAU Health Hub innovation environment,” says Kim Drenstrup. Clinical research requires three test phases. And at the moment, REDO is in

the process of reviewing the latest research study, in which a total of 30 people must go through multiple control groups before the study can be approved by the Danish Medicines Agency. REDO expects RELEARN, as they call their form of treatment, on the market in the second half of 2022. And it will be a groundbreaking development, they expect. “By visualizing the brain activity from a pain experience around a specific movement, it becomes easier to work with the nervous system’s reactions to what hurts and does not hurt. Our technology shows this to the patient in the same way as a heart rate monitor would show your heartbeat.” “In the long run, we hope to be able to provide a treatment that reduces the need for medication and symptom treatment. With RELEARN, patients can work with exactly their pain challenges, and we very much hope that this will be a revolution for people who suffer from chronic pain every day,” says Mathis Rosenberg Sørensen.

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From University To Unicorn

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Denmark Struggles to Retain International Graduates:

“Fancy Phrases like ‘International Outlook’ Aren’t Going to Cut It” International students are one of the most obvious solutions to Denmark’s growing need for skilled labour, but too many return home after graduating. If they’re to settle and build lives here, we need to be better at opening our arms—in our corporate culture as well as socially. Written by Erik Lillelund

t’s not going too badly for Pleo. In just six years, the fintech company has gained over 17,000 business customers and earned itself a place among the unicorns, a.k.a. startups with a valuation of over 1 billion dollars. Pleo has international employees to thank for its growth. Today, 120 of the 165 based at Pleo’s headquarters in Copenhagen are international talents. And of the 75 developers working at the company, only a handful of them are Danes. Which may explain why Pleo’s founder is disappointed by the Ministry of Education and Research’s statistic that almost half (47 percent) of international graduates from 2016 returned home within one year of graduating. “It’s much easier to retain talent when they’ve moved to Denmark to study, and we need them here. We have a huge shortage of talent in Denmark, especially in the digital sector. Danish companies either have to fight over the limited Danish labour force, or we have to get much better at appealing to internationals, who are not only needed for their competences, they also contribute valuable perspectives unlike our own,” says Jeppe Rindom, CEO and co-founder of the Danish fintech Pleo. The digital sector is particularly starved for talent. According to Statistics Denmark, 70 percent of Danish IT companies with more than 10 employees have difficulty recruiting the people they need. “For many companies, something as banal as language can be the biggest barrier to attracting and retaining talent.

Sure, you can write a press release in English that professes the company’s ‘international outlook’, and many companies have an English-speaking executive board, but among the staff, the language is still Danish. It’s such an advantage to start off—as we did—with a mix of nationalities, because then it’s a given that the company culture is open to nonDanes from the get-go,” Rindom explains. Scandinavian students are more likely to return home At Copenhagen Business School, the problem is nothing new. Even though Denmark is generally voted as one of the most popular places to work and study, we need to be better at making use of that popularity, according to Martin Jes Iversen, Associate Professor and Vice Dean of International Education at CBS. “It helps that foreign students generally think that Denmark is a great place to live, and they’re right about that. But we struggle when it comes to language and culture. We need to have a better setup when it comes to the integration of international talent, ensuring that they can go from university to company without too many obstacles,” he says. One surprising trend is that the further an international student has moved to come to Denmark, the more likely it is they’ll stay. On the other hand, Swedes, Norwegians and Finns are much more likely to run straight back to their homelands after graduating, probably because Denmark is not as attractive a country to them.

From University To Unicorn

Jeppe Rindom CEO and co-founder, Pleo

Trine Møller Career Counselor and Alumni Coordinator at ITU

And that is precisely why cultural inclusion is so important, says Iversen. “All our statistics show that long internships and mentoring schemes work. International graduates simply get more time in the country and begin to grasp why we hold Christmas lunches, how to read our subtle privacy codes and why you sometimes get stuck drinking beer with your colleagues after work,” he says. Social life matters most The outlook at IT University of Copenhagen is a similar one, where a total of 60

percent of international graduates from 2016 stayed and worked in Denmark for longer than a year post graduation. This slightly higher-than-average number can be attributed to the particularly high demand for labour in the digital and tech sectors, explains Trine Møller, Career Counselor and Alumni Coordinator at ITU. But she agrees that if Denmark is to retain more international talent, we have to do a better job of making our workplaces international-friendly. “One thing I often hear is that it can be lonely to be one of the only international employees at a Danish company. It’s not just the language itself that is a barrier, but all of the unwritten cultural rules we have. Companies need to be better at explaining these rules, as well as being open to changing them, based on who their employees are. We have to be able to see ourselves as foreigners see us from the outside,” says Møller. But Møller also admits that company culture and integration schemes are nothing compared to the social element of integration. “The most important thing is that internationals have a circle of friends and a life outside of work. We often joke that the best way to improve the retention rate would be to start a dating service. If we can give them good working conditions, including our famous flat hierarchies, good career development opportunities, welfare, a work-life balance and a social life, then we’re on the right track.” What could a solution look like? Instead of just declaring that companies need to be more internationally minded, a better approach might be to demonstrate how companies could really benefit from international talent. “Companies need to be able to see the benefit based on their own needs. Fancy phases like ‘international outlook’ aren’t going to cut it. But if we focus on specific aspects of how any one company could benefit—by way of language, international partnerships, etc—those who have a real interest in hiring for growth should be convinced enough to do what it takes to attract international talent,” Iversen concludes.

Sponsored: This article is made in cooperation with Innovation Centre Denmark

Turning Danish Ideas Into Global Solutions Boosting life science startups For the second time, the innovation centre in Munich is helping 10 life science startups build their own bridge to the innovative ecosystem in Southern Germany, where industry giants such as Roche, Siemens Healthineers, GE and Boehringer Ingelheim are located. In cooperation with Business Hub Zealand, the startups are offered tailored innovation coaching combined with an innovation camp in Germany, where they will get market assistance and expand their network by participating at the Achema conference in Frankfurt.

This way, the life science companies get a chance to showcase their digital solutions to the German pharma and biotech industry – and build the foundation for long term partnerships across borders. Innovation Centre Denmark Turning Danish ideas into global solutions is the bread and butter at the Danish Innovation Centres around the globe. When Danish innovators are looking to scale abroad, they need to know the newest developments in the market they are looking to move into as well as local, strategic partners.

The Danish Innovation Centres are looking to help them do just that by having boots on the ground in seven strategic hotspots for innovation: Munich, Boston, New Delhi/Bangalore, Seoul, Shanghai, Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv. The centres are working with public organizations, research- and educational institutions and businesses by connecting them to key stakeholders in international markets. Contact: Innovation Centre Denmark Munich Lotte Lundø Nørgaard, Innovation Advisor, lotnor@um.dk telefon +498954585420

Meet the 10 lifescience startups here:

atSpiro

BioLean ApS

atSpiro is developing smart laboratory equipment for bioprocess development. In biotech, process development is a manual process today. This makes it slow and uncertain to bring new products to market, which results in less effective production and unnecessary additional cost.

Biolean make industrial AI happen. The company combines machine learning, process understanding and dynamic visualization to provide plant operators with real-time information on the development of critical operational tasks.

atSpiro is upgrading existing workflows and infrastructures by automating data collection and control of experiments. This way, laboratories can bring new products like enzymes, food ingredients or antibodies to market fast and at reduced cost.

BioLean is an advanced prediction and visualization solution that is tailored for biotech production operations taking into account the nuances and intricacies of Data availability and quality, Process constraints and Operators constraints.

The company is currently looking for partners in biotech and biopharma who wants to improve their process development. Furthermore, they are looking for investors.

BioLean is a stand-alone solution only integrating with the plant control system (DCS/SCADA) and ERP systems to receive process data while not requiring backward integration into the plant data and control infrastructure.

info@atspiro.com // +45 2877 8624 www.atspiro.com

Consibio ApS

FLUIDAN ApS

An industrial data platform that increases uptime and minimizes manual labour by digitalizing processes.

New measurement technology is revolutionizing the manufacture of „thick liquids“ enabling significant process optimization. Paints, detergents, lotions - „thick liquids“ must be thick in the right way to perform right and to meet consumer expectations – they must have the right viscosity.

Consibio’s mission is to combine sensor technology, IoT and advanced algorithms, to create the necessary data foundation for optimizing biological and chemical processes. With a background in Biotechnology and Chemical Engineering, Consibio has the expertise in the optimization of many different production processes. The company’s Cloud and IoT devices enable advanced monitoring and control of any setup. Consibio offers advanced insight into your process, no matter where you are and what you are working with. sjk@consibio.com // +45 20 68 71 89 www.consibio.com

info@biolean.dk // +45 21 28 30 80 www.biolean.dk

Today, quality control of these liquids is done manually in a lab after the production. When making paint nearly half of all production must be reworked because the viscosity is not right. RheoStream® - a process viscometer from Fluidan measures the viscosity profile IN THE PROCESS, making automatic process control possible. This saves time and resources and makes the supply chain predictable. info@fluidan.com // +45 2374 5664 www.fluidan.com

From University To Unicorn

Meet the 10 startups at ICDK’s booth at ‘Digital Tech Summit 2021’

INNITI ApS

IntuBio ApS

Inniti is the solution for accelerating innovation in your laboratory. The company provides laboratory professionals with a solution for automating the design, execution and documentation of experiments. By connecting all your laboratory equipment to the same software platform, Inniti enables you to automatically design, perform and replicate complex experiments with a few clicks. Their solution is modular, so you can build your experiment and ongoingly adapt it to changing needs in the laboratory.

IntuBio provides a rapid service-based solution in case of microbial contamination. The company strives to provide the first CFU results the same day as we receive the samples, and final CFU/TVC results no later than 24 hours after. Thereby a great reduction of downtime and uncertainty is achieved.

That’s why Inniti has empowered visionary lab professionals with the first connected lab solution that generates unique insights. That is why visionary scientists need visionary equipment.

By providing rapid microbial analysis IntuBio aims to revolutionize the way we approach microbiological monitoring. Their solutions are based on sophisticated optical scanning, allowing for early detection of microbial contaminants, while adhering to industrial standards for microbial quantification.

info@inniti.dk // +45 22 44 34 04 www.inniti.dk

Contamination of downstream processes is a huge concern in most industries, not least in bio-pharmaceutical manufacturing.

contact@intubio.dk // +45 5354 1414 www.intubio.dk

ParticleTech ApS

Reshape Biotech

ParticleTech’s vision is to provide the process industry with a powerful and innovative imaging analysis tool, to monitor production processes and help improve process optimization.The competitive strength of industries relies mainly on the ability to improve the performance of the production systems. Measurement systems are the brain of modern industry. ParticleTech experience an increasing demand for ways to generate fast and reliable process monitoring data, and therefore aim to provide strong at-line analytical technologies to the process industries, for fast, time-saving and cost-effective results. With a highly flexible at-line process monitoring solution, it is possible to acquire detailed quantitative information about a process. ParticleTech develops customer fitted solutions based on optical scanning technologies, for optimizing process control.

Reshape Biotech is building the next generation of robots for biotech labs. The mission is to make automation an everyday thing, where complex implementation is not a barrier. The best robots are extremely simple to use. Reshape Biotech currently focus on solid media workflows, helping R&D departments in everything from food culture development to crop protection, bioindustrial strain development and basic microbiological research.

info@particletech.dk // + 45 53 54 80 84 www.particletech.dk

They help customers achieve frictionless digitalization and quantification of microbiological assays on solid media - the first step for creating the lab of the future.

ceg@reshapebiotech.com // +45 40 82 09 50 www.reshapebiotech.com

Techvolver ApS

Enabled Robotics ApS

Techvolver was established in 2018 to transform pipette calibration from a manual activity to an automated solution digitizing data handling, eliminating EHS risks, improving data integrity & increasing the bottom line.

Enabled Robotics’ ER-FLEX robot helps companies to automate internal logistics processes. The flexibility of a Universal Robots arm, the mobility of a MiR platform and integrated software for developing smart applications means companies can use the ER-FLEX for many different tasks, such as: • machine tending in a loop sequence (24/7-365) to reduce downtime; • transporting and handling materials to reduce the burden of repetitive tasks and ensure traceability; and • replenishing supplies so employees can spend their valuable time solving other tasks. As well as addressing the labor shortage and reducing the cost of automation for companies of any size, the ER-FLEX enables a quick and easy switch between functions so that users who have no previous programming experience can put the robot to work in a matter of minutes.

Their solution, Calvolver, is installed in the laboratory on a rental basis, and therefore no investment is needed. The company provides innovative, full-service, automated pipette calibration solutions for life science laboratories that support customers’ goals to reduce complexity, eliminate repetitive work, and improve their bottom line. Their vision is to take the hassle out of pipette calibration. In a few years pipette calibration will be automated and fully digitized, and no customers would ever dream of going back to the old, manual calibration. info@techvolver.com // +45 29 93 16 70 www.techvolver.com

rs@enabled-robotics.com // +45 61 8181 61 www.enabled-robotics.com

Serial Entrepreneur

Commercialisation Should Be a Success Criterion for Research

From University To Unicorn

Scientific breakthroughs can make a big difference to populations and societies. But breakthroughs do not always reach the market because researchers focus more on publishing articles than on commercialising results, says serial entrepreneur Martin Vesterby, who himself has a background as a researcher. Written by Sebastian Kjær

ith an always optimistic approach and infectious energy, Martin Vesterby exudes a confident aura of ‘selfmade man’ – like most other successful serial entrepreneurs. The Danish distillery ‘Stauning Whisky’ may be the best-known company he has co-founded, but his CV also includes the co-founding of a number of companies targeted at the healthcare sector – e.g. Visikon (better patient communication) and RobinVac (which can extract extra doses from the corona vaccines). And his background is certainly more academic than most: a medical education, studies at the elite universities Berkeley and Stanford and a PhD in medicine. “I am primarily an entrepreneur and someone who works with the entrepreneurial approach to changing things. But if you want to change the health sector, you must respect the fact that the changes you want to make must be evidence-based. And to make it easier for me to navigate these waters, I was advised to do a PhD. So I guess you could say I became a researcher based on need, not want,” says Martin Vesterby. Research as a startup trump card Although Martin Vesterby received a research grant of DKK 200,000 from the Jorck Foundation for the business-related research in his PhD, he subsequently dedicated himself to entrepreneurship rather than research. In fact, he jokingly describes his feelings about life as a researcher as a love-hate relationship which left him “scarred on body and soul”. Still, he doesn’t advocate the Silicon Valley narrative that you should drop out of college or university to start something big like Facebook because both a long education and research provide special skills and

insights which may prove to be a trump card in entrepreneurship. In fact, this has been the case in several of the companies co-founded by Martin Vesterby. “As an entrepreneur, it’s super important to be professionally strong in the area of expertise where professionally strong profiles are required. If you are new to an area, you will get no recognition in the market without some insight,” he says. Conversely, research alone doesn’t cut it. An example of this is Stauning Whisky, which has been a great success without any prior knowledge of whisky: the distillery was founded by nine friends who knew nothing about whisky but just set out to make the world’s best. “When researchers move towards business, it’s also about humility – about the fact that research means only so much. The researchers are super important, but not indispensable. They are only contributors to an innovation project, and to turn it into a market success, it’s just as important to involve competences from other areas of expertise,” he says. Commercial success criterion Apart from becoming very profitable businesses, startups based on research may also drive real societal change, and this is another reason why researchers should apply more commercial thinking to their work, says Vesterby. “Too few researchers end up as actual entrepreneurs. We have some of the world’s best researchers, but they don’t exploit their potential to the fullest. A piece of software or a biomarker or algorithm is of absolutely no consequence if it can’t be put into context by people who think it’s so valuable that they’ll pay money for it. Innovation without change is just research,” he says.

”So I guess you could say I became a researcher based on need, not want.” Martin Vesterby, serial entrepreneur and PhD in medicine

In his opinion, the lack of commercial thinking is the result of a closed research environment. Researchers seek recognition from other researchers rather than from the surrounding community. The goal is to write a publication that only a handful of other top researchers understand. In his opinion, they should seek and gain recognition for how much difference their research can make in the real world – and this is only done on a large scale through commercialisation. “The inquisitive researcher should be allowed to experiment, but I think it’s unfortunate when the results are presented in a way that only five other researchers understand – because it’s all so nerdy that it cannot be translated into change anywhere. I would like us to find better ways to acknowledge research so that it is not primarily about being published in journals,” he says.

What Is The Danish Word for Silicon Valley? According to the Open Entreprenurship initiative, which aims to strengthen the Danish startup ecosystems, Danish universities have the potential to become the innovation capitals of the future. “Stanford and Berkeley are so innovative because entrepreneurs and investors have become an integral part of academic life,” it is claimed. Written by Erik Lillelund

t is said that you learn more from failure than from success. But perhaps it is the other way round in the university world, where, by virtue of Silicon Valley, the American frontrunners Stanford, Berkeley and MIT have become world famous for the interplay between research and entrepreneurship and synonymous with the success recipe for cutting-edge innovation. And despite the fact that DTU (Technical University of Denmark) ranks very highly internationally and Denmark is generally at the forefront of developments and innovation, it may still be worth looking across the Atlantic. At least according to the Danish initiative Open Entrepreneurship, which, since its establishment in 2017, has been working to make the Danish university ecosystems some of the best in the world. Experience shows, however, that it takes a lot of things to succeed. “There’s no universal tool for this. Research shows that a wide range of elements must be present. First and foremost a capable research environment, and this must be supported by well-functioning funding mechanisms – that is, curious angel investors, venture capital funds and businesses. In general, it can be said that we must make sure that the parties have an ongoing conversation,” says Jes Broeng, serial entrepreneur, researcher and director of Open Entrepreneurship. Open Entreprenurship is a collaboration initiative supported by the Danish Industry Foundation between seven Danish universities - Aalborg University, Aarhus University, DTU, ITU, RUC, University of

Copenhagen and CBS. In 2020, the initiative won an EU award in the “Promoting the Entrepreneurial Spirit” category and, so far, it has supported more than 60 startups hatched from universities. The work of Open Entrepreneurship is twofold. First of all, it works to connect researchers and students with a large network of angel investors, businesspeople and capital investment funds to promote Danish research – whether the aim is a startup, commercialisation or general social innovation. This is done through so-called business units at the various universities, where Open Entrepreneurship provides a workspace for entrepreneurs to be part of the local environment, cooperating with a large network of other entrepreneurs, industrialists, foundations and investors and providing advice on starting a business. “This classic “good ideas come to life by the coffee machine” approach has become kind of a cliché. But with good reason: Because it’s true. This is why it is important to us that our entrepreneurs spend time at the universities and in the research environments. The fact that they are actually sitting further down the hall or in the neighbouring office means that a real connection can be established. Researchers get used to apply commercial thinking in connection with their research, and businesspeople become familiar with the world of academia, Broeng explains.

business sector, the public sector and researchers. The ambition is to make businesses establish a closer relationship with the universities and develop a new approach to research which will increase the number and quality of university startups and contribute to increased knowledge sharing with small and medium-sized enterprises. And that’s the code which has been cracked by the best in the world. “Stanford and Berkeley are so innovative because entrepreneurs and investors have become an integral part of academic life. Because they’ve become an important part of the university. “In Denmark, we are good at working in silos and clusters. But this may sometimes prevent companies and researchers from thinking outside the box of their usual areas of research or work. We need to be better at keeping an open mind as to how Danish research could be used to make a difference in society,” says the director of the Open Entrepreneurship initiative. According to Jes Broeng, a closer dialogue between business and universities will be even more important in the future. Educational institutions must be places where entrepreneurs, angel investors and businesspeople have an important role to play – to a much higher degree than in the past. And this development has already begun, he remarks. “Companies no longer come to campus for the sole purpose of working specifically on product development within their own small field. Today more and more companies have a wide range of overlapping interests with the universities. This is due to talent recruitment among the students, branding opportunities and the opportunity to gain insight into the latest research and capture the technological trends of the future.” “Many businesses have realised the benefits of working systematically with innovation and new technologies. Although it may have no immediate relevance, two or five years from now the world may look completely different. More and more people understand this,” says Jes Broeng. Jes Broeng Director of Open Entrepreneurship

Inviting businesses into the universities Secondly, Open Entrepreneurship facilitates open conversations between the

From University To Unicorn

Sponsored: This article is made in cooperation with Cyber Hub

Cybersecurity Has a Promising Future, and Cyber Hub Wants Denmark to Get a Piece of the Pie The cybertech sector is growing, fast. But it’s likely this is only just the beginning—as more and more companies go digital, there is a greater demand for cybersecurity than ever before. In recent years, words like ‘phishing’ and ‘ransomware’ have found their way into the Danish language, alongside the more widely known ‘hacker’. Meanwhile, Cyber Hub (the Danish Hub for Cybersecurity) reports that awareness of cybersecurity is growing in Denmark, as well as the number of startups in the sector. Until now, it seems like we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg, as today’s increasingly advanced cyber-attacks call for even more advanced solutions. “Without cybersecurity, a future of digitalisation is impossible. Cyber Hub aims to serve as a platform for knowledge-driven innovation in the cybersecurity or ‘cybertech’ sector. In practice, this means increasing the number of cybertech startups and making the existing ones even better. We also want to involve companies that don’t typically see themselves as cybertech, but who have the potential to develop great solutions. All in all, it’s about improving the commercial outlook for cybersecurity in Denmark,” explains Lars Bajlum Holmgaard Christensen, Executive Director of Cyber Hub. Early days Many of these new cybertech startups are tech-driven and offer products and services that are based on a strong, cybersecurity foundation. They use advanced technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum computing to give their customers across all industries a competitive advantage. The thing is, cybersecurity isn’t an industry-specific solution. It’s relevant for every company engaged in digitalisation. In other words, virtually every company needs to be thinking about cybersecurity.

“It’s early days, perhaps too early to talk about a specific industry in Denmark, but there’s already a budding ecosystem. Cyber Hub’s partnership circle includes all the Danish universities, along with several relevant organisations and R&D institutions. We’re building a community where people across the industry can talk to each other and work together on the challenges we face,“ says Holmgaard Christensen. A one-stop shop Cybersecurity can be a sensitive topic for established companies. It can sometimes seem that just by putting the topic on the agenda, a whole bunch of complex security problems materialise out of the blue. However, with Cyber Hub as a central anchor for the industry, the matter of cybersecurity is becoming an easier one to tackle. Companies, investors and researchers turn to the hub to learn about the cybertech scene in Denmark and often participate in developing solutions together. This kind of community is vital, if Denmark is to make a name for itself internationally. “Cyber Hub is a one-stop shop for those who want to learn more about cybersecurity and cybertech in Denmark. Our hub status also allows us to connect different players in the industry and this is where it really starts to take off—instead of having to invent everything from scratch, we can share knowledge and ideas, so that everyone in the industry benefits and grows together,” says Holmgaard Christensen.

Lars Bajlum Holmgaard Christensen Executive Director of Cyber Hub

Here’s what Cyber Hub does for startups Cyber Hub supports startups in a variety of ways: •

•

Pilot Projects: Looking for and identifying security problems in existing companies and connecting them to partners who may be able to solve those problems. Solutions Labs: Connecting larger companies with startups and researchers who collaborate together to solve the company’s security issues.

•

Cyberboost: Support for projects conducted by R&D institutions and companies, including financial support for the development of new solutions and technologies. Acceleration Programmes: Cyber Hub supports existing programmes, including those at universities, that have a cybertech component with the potential to contribute value to startups in other industries.

Sponsored: This article is made in cooperation with Digital Tech Summit

QuasiOS Is a Startup on a Mission to Beat Microsoft, with a Newer, More Secure Operating System for Robots Three young computer scientists from the University of Southern Denmark are rethinking the security in modern operating systems. For now, their work will benefit robots at Universal Robots, but the end goal is to take on Windows and Linux. When I was a kid, something in me wanted to beat Microsoft, and I’ve thought about it ever since.” He laughs as he says it, but there is a sincerity to Jørn Guldberg’s words. A childhood fascination with computers led to a computer science degree at SDU in Odense, all the while driven by a personal goal to develop something that could start a computer. He succeeded, together with two fellow students, although the first self-developed operating system was a primitive one. After handing in his Master’s thesis this summer, Guldberg has come a little closer to achieving his dream. He and fellow students Patrick Jakobsen and Jakob Kjær-Kammersgaard founded the

company QuasiQS, whose mission— amongst other things—is of course to beat Microsoft. In reality, the startup is developing a protocol for a more stable and secure operating system, which will initially be put into use in robots and similar IoT gadgets. “Our technology enables us to send encrypted messages to the robot without also obscuring the identity of the sender of the message. This is an approach to permissions that is very different from the current operating systems out there, and it provides a different kind of security, which is great for people who work with robots. With our technology they don’t have to worry about the robot starting before they’re ready because someone starts or updates it through the

Although the operating system from QuasiOS is still in the early stages of development, with their new protocol, the SDU founders are really rethinking digital security. “If there is a ransomware attack, which can shut down a whole network, our solution ensures that such an attack can only reach one computer,” explains Jørn Guldberg.

network,” Guldberg explains. Although the three founders started their business during the summer holidays, they’re already working with Universal Robots (among others), who spotted the potential in their security solution for robots. And, according to the founder, they’re only just getting started. “Security is a good place for us to begin because we have some new ideas and solutions to add to the pot. But it’s unlikely we’ll stop at robots. The operating systems we’re developing could also be beneficial to servers and individual laptops, just to name a couple of examples. But right now, we’re focussing on making a difference to the security and stability within Industry 4.0 [The Fourth Industrial Revolution]” says Guldberg, who, beside his co-founder title, is also the director and Kernel Developer at QuasiOS. A happy collaboration The three founders of QuasiOS were already well underway with the development of their operating system whilst they were studying at University of Southern Denmark, and were assisted in this process by ‘SDU Entrepreneurship Labs’. “When we started, we all thought we were getting a bit ahead of ourselves, because at the time it was more of an idea than an actual product with potential. But, looking back, I think it was the right time because we’ve advanced so quickly, and our headstart meant that we were ready to go all in with the company as soon as we finished our degrees,” says Guldberg. The university has continued to play a role in QuasiOS’s development even after the three founders graduated. The new protocol, which is the foundation of the security for their future operating system, is being developed in collaboration as part of a research project at the university. It involves Universal Robots as a partner and is financially supported by both the Center for Cyber Security and SDU itself. “The research is based on our theses, where we set out some basic security principles which differ from those of most operating systems. Essentially, what we’re trying to do is modernise digital security. A lot of today’s systems are still based on what was developed in the 70s and 80s, back when people had no idea how crazy it would get. That’s why we want to approach things differently,” Guldberg concludes.

From University To Unicorn

Sponsored: This article is made in cooperation with Digital Tech Summit

”We’ve done a lot of different things, but we are working on attracting some bigger films – and the dream is, of course, to make a feature film to be shown at the cinema so we can step onto the red carpet with our families,” says Camilla Mødekjær.

Amunet Studio: From study internship to startup Thanks to a series of coincidences, three medialogy students discovered the power of using gaming technology in the film industry. This resulted in the startup Amunet Studio. Aishah, Camilla and Mathias were actually searching for an internship in a company as part of the study of medialogy at Aalborg University, but before they found one, an opportunity arose to do a special internship programme together with students from Truemax and the National Film School of Denmark. “All three of us were admitted to this programme, where, for the first time, an animation film was to be produced in a game-engine – that is, with gaming technology which is usually used for developing computer games. And, in a Danish context, using it for films was a completely new concept,” says Aishah Hussain. To the three students, it was a familiar concept, however; they had been using gaming technology for filmmaking all through their studies. But seeing the enthusiasm of the filmmakers for the opportunity of using gaming technology as a digital tool in films made them realise that there might be a business opportunity there. And this was the start of their joint enterprise ‘Amunet Studio’.

Customers lined up before the company was ready Immediately after the alternative internship, the three medialogy students were invited to see how a large-scale music video was made. And though it wasn’t really the plan, the invitation ended with them being in charge of the motion capture part, making virtual characters and digital textures for the production. And this resulted in the trio’s first mention in the credits of a production. “At that time, our company didn’t exist. But we received an overwhelming amount of inquiries from filmmakers who had seen what we had done,” says Camilla Mødekjær. In fact, the three were still students, working on their theses while trying to turn Amunet Studios into a real company that did not settle invoices in the founders’ private bank accounts. To this end, they received help from the incubator at Aalborg University. For instance, they received mentor guidance and carried out their work from here the first year. At the same time, they received an ‘Innofounder Graduate’ grant, which financed their salaries in the first phase of development. “It’s totally atypical for customers to approach you before you are ready, and the start is really a bit blurry for me,

because we were simply so busy getting the company up and running since customers just kept coming in. We just had to keep up with the customers,” Aishah Hussain recalls. Today and going forward Today, Aishah, Camilla and Mathias all work full time with Amunet Studio, where they do virtual production across the board. “It’s actually production on a computer. But for us it’s format-free, so we make commercials, films and cut scenes for computer games. But it’s basically using game engines from the gaming industry for film production,” Aisha Hussain explains, and continues: “The traditional pipeline for using computer graphics in films is very long. But using game engines, we are able to see everything live, which saves a lot of time in production. The technologies are not new, of course, but at first they were very expensive and only used in Hollywood. Now they’ve become much cheaper, so many more can afford them.” Recently, the trio moved into their own office space near Nørreport in the centre of Copenhagen, but they are still strongly connected to the entire network at Aalborg University, where they also teach from time to time.

From discovery to commercial success:

n 2019, Draupnir Bio received an investment of 225 million DKK. AgroIntelli followed suit with 108 million DKK in 2020. And only this year, Muna Therapeutics managed to raise an impressive 450 million DKK. Although their product differs—from drugs to prevent blood clots in the heart, self-propelled agricultural machinery and the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases—what these three companies have in common is that they have all spun out of research conducted at Aarhus University. The university therefore owns the patents on which these companies are based. Meanwhile, Draupnir Bio, AgroIntelli and Muna Therapeutics serve as excellent examples for how university research can evolve into viable commercial projects. “The number of patents aren’t nearly as important to us as the amount of jobs created by the companies based on the research. That’s where we can see that we’re really making a difference, when our spin-out companies are able to employ hundreds of people,” says Morten Holmager, Business Development Manager at Aarhus University’s Tech Transfer Office. Over the past decade, the Tech Transfer Office has helped to establish 31 spin-out companies based on intellectual property rights from Aarhus University. As of today, 21 of those companies are still active and employ approximately 200 people.

In it for the long haul This is not just the case for Aarhus University; the number of spin-out companies from all Danish universities has been growing over the past 10 years, reaching a peak in 2019 and 2020, where Danish universities “spun out” a total of 27 patent-based companies. What seems to have catalysed such growth is that universities are getting better at commercialising their patents. This is no small achievement, according to Holmager, because the process from patent registration to commercialisation is such a long one. “It involves us, together with the researchers, building up a case for how their patent can become a spin-out company. We figure out the business model and we also devise a strategy for a possible sale of the company further down the line. For a typical life science company, there’s usually a pre-clinical phase and then a sale to a pharmaceutical company,” he says. Aarhus University’s latest spin-out, iNotify, is one example of just how long the process from research to business can be. The main researcher has been researching reproduction for over 20 years and only four years ago discovered some molecules that have the potential to help women who don’t respond well to hormone therapy get pregnant. However, before the project could go any further, there was a need to ascer-

Morten Holmager Business Development Manager at Aarhus University’s Tech Transfer Office

From University To Unicorn

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

Number of spinouts from Danish universities

tain whether the invention could be licensed directly by a pharmaceutical company. That required further clinical trials, so the project became a spin-out, which has taken four years to get on the right track. New talents needed But how do you assess whether a spin-out company is the right way to go or not? This is where the Tech Transfer Office comes into the picture. “Researchers tend to be exceptional on the research side of things, but they soon find out that they lack some of the competencies needed to commercialise their work. Much of the process from research to business is actually about finding new talents for their team, such as a commercially-minded CEO,” Holmager explains, and continues: “This can take several years, because it also requires a huge mental shift for the researchers involved. They might have spent the past 20 years conducting research and now, all of a sudden, they have to think commercially. So yes, it can take a while, but it tends to be sped up when we start introducing them to

investors and they get feedback on how the product could work, and what it’s missing.” Few make it so far Aarhus’ Tech Transfer Office is responsible for the licensing and establishing of companies based on university patents. Every year, 70 potential inventions are evaluated, of which 50 go further in the process, ending up in 22 patent applications. Generally, this results in 14 licensing deals and 2-3 spin-out companies each year. Although this doesn’t sound like much compared to the usual

startup turnover, the companies who do make it are often long-lasting ones, who are able to employ many people, but who would otherwise have had difficulty establishing themselves without the initial assistance. “Most researchers don’t have experience in commercialising their results and that’s the whole point of our Tech Transfer Office. We’re here to assess what can be commercialised and then to help commercialise it. You could also see it as a kind of loop, where the research funded by the public delivers value back to society at large,” Holmager concludes.

Inventions and spin-outs at Danish universities Since 1991, universities have been required by law to report patentable invetions. The purpose is that research results produced with the support of public funding should be able to contribute to the corporate sector. As of 2012, the number of such inventions from Danish universities has been over 300 per year, and latest figures from 2020 show

just under 350, which resulted in a total of 42 patents. Nationwide, the number of spin-out companies based on university patents is growing: in 2012, Danish universities produced a record number of 10 spin-outs; in 2018, this number more than doubled and in 2020, it reached a new record of 27 spin-outs.

Source: Universities Denmark https://dkuni.dk/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/noegletal-for-kommercialiseringsstatistikken-2020.pdf

Sponsored: This article is made in cooperation with Plougmann Vingtoft

AI ideas are booming – but how do you protect them? Ideas involving artificial intelligence are being patented like never before. But how does one patent mathematics, and should you?

A Per Jørgen Nygreen Head of Technology & Software at IPR consultancy Plougmann Vingtoft

rtificial Intelligence (AI) plays a central role in the fourth industrial revolution currently rolling over us in the form of e.g. self-driving cars, IoT and automation. Consequently, the number of patents in AI has surged. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), over half of all AI patents in history have been published the past nine years. – Today, workable pieces of AI are readily available. That’s why it has gained momentum, says Per Jørgen Nygreen, who specializes in protecting ideas within artificial intelligence as Head of Technology & Software at IPR consultancy Plougmann Vingtoft. Per Jørgen Nygreen encourages everyone with a budding AI idea to consider protecting it. However, there are three important things to keep in mind before doing so: AI is mathematics - remember the technical side AI is essentially a mathematical 1 algorithm that finds patterns and performs probability calculations. Therefore, it is typically perceived as pure mathematics by the patent authorities. And mathematics cannot be patented. - AI can be patented if it has a technical character. For example, as part of a sensor

that measures temperature to control a power plant or a car. Using mathematics will seldom be held against your patent application, but remember the technical application, says Per Jørgen Nygreen. Make sure you can enforce your know-how When you apply for a patent, you 2 give the outside world access to detailed knowledge about your innovation. Therefore, you need to consider whether you can enforce your patent. And that can be difficult. – Infringements of software patents are difficult to prove. So, you need to be sure that you can make it at least plausible that someone has violated your right. This is an important risk assessment you must make, he says. Increase the value of your AI A patent application binds 3 knowledge to the company. It is an assurance for the investor that no employee can take the idea with them to another firm. Therefore, as a company, you should always apply for patent if your idea lives up to the requirements. – If you are a startup that has not secured its rights, you will be less valuable for investors – regardless of whether you work with AI or physical gizmos. Patents are simply a cheap way to increase your value, says Per Jørgen Nygreen.

From University To Unicorn

Investors Are Flocking to Universities:

“The Startups That Are Willing to Listen Are The Ones Who’ll Make It” From robotic arms to allergy pills, startup hubs are popping up at universities all over the place and strengthening the bridge between research and entrepreneurship. But how do investors assess which university startups have what it takes? We asked the experts what they look for. Written by Erik Lillelund

n 1996, Sergey Brin was asked to give a tour around Stanford University for aspiring graduate students. One of the visitors was Larry Page, whose chemistry with the elder student was instant. A friendship was born and only two years later, the service we today know as the ubiquitous Google was born. Straight out of the campus dormitories. Universities, despite their long-standing culture and tradition, are increasingly becoming hotbeds (in the best sense of the word) for bright ideas and lifelong friendships. What’s more, the increased focus on entrepreneurship in higher education is fostering an ever closer relationship between research, young pioneers and the startup and business community. This may well be where we’ll find solutions to some of the major societal challenges we face in the near and far future. But how do investors and private equity funds assess which projects can

survive outside the university bubble? The process is not all that different from that of analysing other types of startups, according to Mads Lacoppidan, Senior Investment Manager at The Danish Growth Fund who is specialising in medtech companies, which often spring directly from universities. “Uni startups undergo a similar analysis to all other startups, but there are a few things we have to be more aware of,” he says. “For example, the students or researchers generally have a good technical foundation and the research behind any given problem is strong, but the teams tend to be heavily research weighted, and are weaker on the commercial side of things. But that’s also what makes university startups especially exciting for investors.” According to Lacoppidan, this increased focus on entrepreneurship in education matches the ambitions and ideas today’s younger generations are growing up with—in part due to a

From University To Unicorn

Mads Lacoppidan Senior Investment Manager at The Danish Growth Fund

shift in the understanding of what it means to be an entrepreneur, meaning that both students and researchers are far more attracted to the entrepreneurial way of life than before. “A few years ago, you could easily go through the entire education system without having contact with the concept of entrepreneurship as a possible livelihood. Today, you can hardly make it through the first semester without being introduced to it. This means that young people no longer only see themselves as potential employees. On the contrary, it has become sexy to be an entrepreneur.” Human due diligence As the startup ecosystem has grown, educational institutions have begun to professionalise the link between research and entrepreneurship and so-called “hubs” are popping up at universities everywhere. These hubs serve as facilitators, ensuring that the best ideas and projects of students don’t go to waste, but have the chance to be transformed into real-world potential. Meanwhile, angel investors are becoming part of such projects even earlier in the process, to contribute with the necessary commercial perspective. One such angel investor is Claus Hansen of DanBAN, who has an impressive portfolio of investing behind him, especially when it comes to university startups. And the key to assessing the viability of a project, he says, is to get involved sooner rather than later. “One of the most important things to assess in a university startup is what we call human due diligence. I want to get to know the people behind a project over a period of 12 months, not just in the 12 minutes it takes to pitch the idea. It’s that extended period that is so crucial for assessing whether a project can take off in the real world.” He continues: “Rather than trying to ‘pick the winners’, I prefer to ‘build the winners’. The startups that will make it are the ones who are willing to listen to the competences of others along the way, and when you find that kind of team, you know you’re onto something.” An early attempt to understand how other businesses, investors and funds will assess the company can pay off for angel investors in the long run. According to

Hansen, it’s also about shaping a certain attitude and mindset in the young entrepreneurs. “Projects in these early stages rarely make good investment cases. I love academics because they usually have such a deep, deep knowledge about a topic and plenty of data to back it up with, which is wonderful, of course. But there also comes a point when more data won’t help, when we have to figure out what we can use all that data and knowledge for. And you don’t do that by proving the problem exists 17 more times,” he says.

Claus Hansen Investor at DanBAN

Micro grants for students Since 2011, the Danish Foundation for Entrepreneurship (FFE) has offered socalled “micro grants” for students and researchers with entrepreneurial ambitions. There are three application rounds a year, and grants of up to DKK 50,000 can be applied for. The foundation receives approximately 400 applications each year and awards approximately 130 grants. The idea behind the grants is just as much about moral support as it is financial. “In the early stages, you also need someone to believe in you. Such a grant sends a powerful signal to any young entrepreneur. What’s more, the process of writing an application helps to clarify what it is you’re working on and we also ensure that everyone gets feedback, whether they are awarded funding or not. That’s always important when working with young people, because they’re in a learning process more than anything else,” says Emilie Normann, Head of Research, Analysis and Higher Education at FFE. Over the past three years (since 2019), the foundation, in collaboration with Tuborgfondet, has launched a number of micro grants based on the UN‘s 17 sustainable development goals. The aim is to get young entrepreneurs started on tackling the greatest societal challenges of today. These micro grants received a record number of applicants for the autumn application round this year. “Along with the grants, we also coach the people that receive funding. This is where we can really see how increased focus on entrepreneurship at Danish universities over the past few years has benefitted students. It’s clear from our own data that the young startups we support do slightly better than others, and of course we hope that that’s because we give them more than just financial support,” Normann concludes.

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From University To Unicorn

From University To Unicorn 2021

Articles inside

Investors Are Flocking to Universities: “The Startups That Are Willing to Listen Are The Ones Who’ll Make It”

AI ideas are booming – but how do you protect them?

From discovery to commercial success: What Does It Take to Turn Research into Business?

Amunet Studio: From study internship to startup

QuasiOS Is a Startup on a Mission to Beat Microsoft, with a Newer, More Secure Operating System for Robots

Cybersecurity Has a Promising Future, and Cyber Hub Wants Denmark to Get a Piece of the Pie

What Is The Danish Word for Silicon Valley?

Serial Entrepreneur Commercialisation Should Be a Success Criterion for Research

ICDK: Turning Danish Ideas Into Global Solutions

Denmark Struggles to Retain International Graduates: “Fancy Phrases like ‘International Outlook’ Aren’t Going to Cut It”

Turn up the volume of your career

Aalborg University-Startup Wants To Revolutionize the Way We Treat Chronic Pain

Calling All Researchers: You Don’t Have to Stop Seeing Your Kids to Become an Entrepreneur

Excuse Me, But What’s The Purpose?

Students at Stibo Accelerator Are Encouraged to Ask: What If?

Entrepreneurial Hubs Are Increasingly Becoming Part of Danish Universities

Entrepreneurship On The Syllabus

Expert Panel: How Do We Spawn More Succesful Startups From Universities?

Research at startup speed: How Syncsense Used Their University Thesis to Kickstart Their Company

Alvenir: Research And Open Source Can Be Combined With a Commercial Startup

"There Is Often a Disconnect Between Research and Business, but Why Not Do Both?”

Entrepreneurs Invited Into The Universities

About: From University to Unicorn