University of Arizona tech spinoffs advancing new battery and medical diagnostic technologies recently took important steps toward taking their inventions to market.
CarbeniumTec, founded by UA assistant chemistry professor Thomas Gianetti, won the UA Center for Innovation Sponsored Launch Fueled by Perkins Coie LLP competition, including a sponsored year of admission to the UACI at the UA Tech Park.
CarbeniumTec is developing a new type of nontoxic โredox flow battery,โ which uses liquid electrolytes to store power, for large-scale power storage, based on work advanced at Gianettiโs lab at the UA.
The company is in the process of licensing the technology from the UA through Tech Launch Arizona, the schoolโs tech commercialization arm, and will move into the UACI when that is completed.
The startup also will receive a cash award of $10,000 and $5,000 for legal services, for a total prize package valued at $25,000.
โCarbeniumTec will thrive by gaining legitimacy, exposure to funding opportunities, and grow its technology to a marketable product,โ said Gianetti, who serves as the companyโs CEO.
Metfora moves forward
Another UA technology spinoff helped by TLA, Metfora, is moving ahead after licensing technology that uses artificial intelligence to provide earlier diagnosis of lung disease and other ailments through analysis of metabolites โ small molecules produced through cellular reactions.
Metfora co-founders Ruslan Rafikov and Dr. Olga Rafikova, both associate professors of medicine at the UA college, developed the technology through research funded by the National Institutes of Health and launched the startup with the help of TLA. After participating in TLAโs asset-development program and the UAโs NSF I-Corps program, Metfora was accepted into the national I-Corps program.
Last year, Metfora completed an advanced entrepreneurial program at the UA FORGE (Finding Opportunities & Resources to Grow Entrepreneurs), which fosters entrepreneurship across the UA campus, and joined the UACI as part of a pilot program.
Metfora also was the only Tucson-based startup among 16 finalists that presented at the 2022 Venture Madness Conference business-pitch competition in Phoenix last week, though it was not among the winners.
Metforaโs technology uses artificial intelligence โ which essentially enables machines to learn and solve problems โ to help find differences in the metabolite โfingerprintsโ that mark all diseases.
