In Ovo and QuinteQ Energy have been admitted to the Virtual Accelerator of Make Next Platform (MNP) on 21 January 2022. Both companies have completed the MNP Challenge successfully.
In Ovo is a spinoff of Leiden University and was founded in 2013 by Wouter Bruins (biologist) and Wil Stutterheim (biomedical) to find a solution to end chick culling. Total staff end of 2021: 25.
Every year, 6.5 billion chicks are culled in the poultry industry. These are male and therefore do not lay eggs. Traditionally chicks are sorted by gender by hand and the males are culled right after hatching. In Ovo has developed a high-throughput screening machine called Ella which can identify the gender of the egg before it hatches. This gives hatcheries the option to only hatch the females, which is better for animal welfare and sustainability.
Ella is a state-of-the-art machine that can determine the gender of an egg early in the incubation process. This solution was made possible by several technological breakthroughs. In Ovo identified a novel biomarker for gender together with Leiden University. Together with engineering company Demcon, a precise and automated sampling method for tiny amounts of fluid from the egg was developed. Additionally, In Ovo is the first to apply the fastest mass spectrometer in the world, the Sciex Echo® MS, outside a laboratory.
In Q1 2021, the Ella machine was tested successfully during a first commercial production run at Dutch hatchery Het Anker. A further developed Ella machine with a much higher throughput is ready to match modern hatcheries’ high production volumes. The first two Ella’s will start production at Het Anker and at Lohmann Deutschland.
The market introduction is timely. Ending chick culling is an animal welfare topic high on the agendas of consumers, retailers, and governments. Germany banned chick culling from 1 January 2022 and France will follow in 2023. In Ovo is on a mission to roll out the Ella technology around the world, to end chick culling all together.
The First Opinion of Stichting TechnologyRating (STR) concluded that the business case and revenue model of In Ovo is very promising and well thought over. Ella is best-in-class compared to competitors. The MNP Jury was impressed by the achievements of the young In Ovo team. The company fits MNP’s target group well.
Gerben Edelijn, CEO Thales NL, will coach the company.
Co-founder Wouter Bruins: ´I´m delighted that In Ovo is selected to take part in the Virtual Accelerator of Make Next Platform. It´s an honor that our work is recognized, and we look forward to creating a sustainable poultry industry together. ´
QuinteQ Energy is an energy storage technology company in Nijmegen founded in 2016 by CEO Paul Vosbeek (clean tech entrepreneur), CTO Wouter Biemans (mechatronics expert) and CSO Darin Olson (material sciences). Total staff is 9 people.
The company has acquired an exclusive license from The Boeing Company in 2018 to further develop, engineer, and commercialize Boeing’s flywheel-based kinetic battery technology. The functional properties of the kinetic battery are comparable to Lithium-ion batteries, i.e., storage, loading and unloading of electrical energy. It has an estimated lifetime of at least 350k cycles (20-25 years), while Li-ion batteries last 3k-6k cycles. The flywheel spins at 6k-23k rpm in a vacuum vessel. The special rotor material, the super conducting bearing and the vacuum result in almost no energy-losses: < 0.1%/hr and costs of € 0.03 kWh/cycle. The technology is scalable. The kinetic battery can be produced in stacks of up to 2 MW units, for example 20 units of 100 kW each. QuinteQ’s kinetic battery is optimized for highly efficient micro grid balancing applications on minute timescales. It is the ideal peak shaver in an electrical storage system together with Li-ion and/or flow batteries. Market demand for peak shaving is increasing as the transition from fossil to green energy sources is gaining speed.
Launching customer is Fieldlab Smart Base in Ede of the Dutch Ministry of Defence. Easy-to-transport kinetic batteries will be tested under rough military conditions in off-grid situations. The promising target market is the sizable industrial commercial market in- and outside the Netherlands.
STR’s First Opinion concluded that the company is in an early scale up phase. But the business case and revenue model have a sizable potential. QuinteQ’s high-tech kinetic battery is currently best-in-class.
The MNP Jury admitted the company to the Virtual Accelerator having judged the potential of the business case. MNP can help QuinteQ scale faster and become successful in international markets.
Peter Berting, Director Global Business Development of Huisman, will coach the company.
The positive decision elicited the following remark from Paul Vosbeek, CEO and Co-founder: ‘Such great Dutch manufacturing companies will give a significant boost to QuinteQ’s growth path as they allow us access to their know-how, supply-chain and market. Moreover, it also provides a direct link to the high-performing leadership of these great icons of Dutch industry.’