The startups that will be offered pre-seed investment over the 2016 scheme is Leieting, Seasmart, Pluvia and Sensario. The funding BTO invests is matched with capital from private investors.
One of the companies receiving pre-seed funding is Leieting. The startup company will now be granted one million NOK. Leieting’s idea is to give people the opportunity to rent out things they do not use.
Seasmart will receive one million NOK as well, for further developing a drone to monitor the aquaculture environment. The company has decided to spend the pre-seed funding on development in order to grow further.
Pluvia is granted 500.000 NOK. Pluvia is working on developing a new therapy for treating rare metabolic diseases, and currently works on a project aiming to treat phenylketonuria. The company base their treatment on research from the University of Bergen.
Sensario is also offered one million NOK in pre-seed funding. Sensario has developed a sensor technology with a long reach, continuously supervising the state of your boat. It will as an example let you know if your boat would start to leak.
BTO has in addition set aside 1,5 million NOK aimed at our accelerator program Accel Seafood and we have also allocated 1 million NOK for a currently unnamed research project.
BTO has very good experience with the pre-seed scheme. This is the second round of allocation of pre-seed funding and we find that the funds trigger private capital. The scheme enables risk spreads and it makes it more interesting for private investors to enter the early phase start-up businesses.