What’s Next in Tech? See it at Luminate Finals 2022

Ten startups are in the running for $2 million at Luminate Finals 2022. These innovators are transforming what’s possible in a host of industries — from a better way to manage diabetes to a clearer picture of traffic in space. Attend Finals free — in person or virtually — to see the emerging technologies from the startups of Luminate’s cohort 5, vote for your favorite team, and find out who takes home big funding. Everyone is welcome but seats are limited, so register now!

Thank you to Optica for sponsoring Luminate Finals for the third year in a row, this year as part of Frontiers in Optics + Laser Science (FiO LS). We’re looking forward to an exciting event, including hearing from keynote Michal Lipson, renowned physicist and MacArthur Fellow for her contributions to silicon photonics.

Help a Company Win $10,000

During Luminate Finals, you’ll have the chance to vote live for your favorite startup team and help them take home the Audience Choice Award, plus $10,000 cash. Here’s a look at the startups:

Alertgy
CEO: Marc Rippen
Hometown: Melbourne, FL

Alertgy gives diabetics and the world’s 2 billion pre-diabetics a way to non-invasively monitor their blood glucose levels on demand, providing trending information and automatic alerts if levels are too low or high. Alertgy’s patented wristband platform eliminates the need for intrusive measurement techniques like implanted sensors, patches, or devices that use chemical reactions or fluid transfer through the skin.

Axion Technologies LLC
CEO: Carol Scarlett, PhD
Hometown: Jacksonville, FL

Axion Technologies develops Quantum Random Number Generators (QRNG) and optical splitters/multiplexers. Its patented technique for scrambling light provides quantum random numbers for use in numerous computing applications, including encryption and data simulation. These applications protect data and expand the usefulness of simulations for more secure networking.

Custom Surgical
CEO: Federico Acosta
Hometown: Munich, Germany

Custom Surgical is modernizing ophthalmology by providing an effective way to record, store, and analyze medical procedures and leverage them to diagnose and treat patients. Its optical system, the MicroREC, allows ophthalmologists to connect any smartphone camera to the optical path of their microscopes, while its data management platform allows them to easily store and share their videos and images on the cloud.

LIDROTEC
CEO: Alexander Igelmann
Hometown: Bochum, Germany

LIDROTEC’s wafer-dicing laser technology enables thinner cuts with a virtually 0% damage rate, providing significant cost savings and productivity increases to the semiconductor industry. Its innovation is in the efficient use of liquids in the laser processing zone, which cool and rinse wafers while the laser cuts out the chips.

LightSpeed Photonics
CEO: Rohin Yeluripati, PhD
Hometown: Singapore

LightSpeed Photonics is addressing the need for increased real-time processing of data bandwidth-intensive applications like video streaming, cybersecurity, and smartNICs (Network Interface Cards). Its modular processors for data centers and edge cloudlets are scalable, field programmable units, so customers can use them for multiple applications simultaneously.

MEETOPTICS
CEO: Bárbara Buades, PhD
Hometown: Barcelona, Spain

MEETOPTICS is building an AI-driven platform that helps engineers and researchers in the optics and photonics industry access and compare products from trusted manufacturers. With MEETOPTICS’ comprehensive database, users can quickly discover specialized suppliers and available products in minutes instead of weeks, while manufacturers have a direct channel to customers and can showcase up-to-date capabilities at the moment of purchase.

QD Solar Inc.
CEO: Daniel Shea
Hometown: Toronto, Ontario

QD Solar combines two light-absorbing nanomaterials — perovskite and quantum dots — in a tandem cell architecture to take solar beyond efficiencies achievable using silicon solar cells. It offers a roll-to-roll solar sheet that is low cost, flexible, durable, and lightweight, and that can be easily integrated into existing solar panel manufacturing supply chains.

Quantopticon
CEO: Mirella Koleva, PhD
Hometown: Guilford, United Kingdom

Quantopticon is revolutionizing the design process in the emerging quantum technology industry. Its modeling software, Quantillion, eliminates the need to carry out multiple-iteration trial-and-error prototyping, supporting the rapid, cost-effective development of high-quality, peak-performing quantum-photonic devices. By ensuring right-first-time, optimized device designs, Quantopticon is unlocking the pathway to rapid, high-yield, low-cost manufacturing of quantum-photonic systems.

SCOUT
CEO: Eric Ingram
Hometown: Alexandria, VA

SCOUT is changing space operations with its vision-based autonomy solutions that let systems better identify and avoid risks and failures. Space traffic will grow 40x this decade, and understanding the congested orbital environment is key for space safety and mission assurance. SCOUT provides on-orbit imaging systems and autonomy software for automated detection, tracking, and characterization of space objects and orbital debris.

Stratio, Inc.
CEO: James (Jae-Hyung) Lee
Hometown: San Jose, CA

Stratio offers infrared imaging solutions for Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS), medical imaging, precision farming, laser material processing, and food/plastic sorting. Stratio’s BeyonSense® is the world’s first smartphone-compatible shortwave infrared (SWIR) camera, designed to be 5x lighter and 20x cheaper than technology currently on the market, at 10x less power consumption.