LIQID Medical, one of the businesses that received grant funding from the CDI’s Design Innovation Seed Fund (DISF) has gone on to win in the Digital Health and Medical Devices category at the Hello Tomorrow Global Summit in Paris this March. Hello Tomorrow is a renowned international start-up competition dedicated to unlocking the power of deep tech to solve our toughest global challenges. LIQID came out tops in a category that had 4 000 applicants from 115 countries!
LIQID Medical is an innovative South African company based in Cape Town. They are pioneering a new class of glaucoma devices. Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide and they are developing devices that offer the highest potential for cost-saving benefits and preventing blindness from glaucoma.
Founder, Dr Daemon McClunan, says the funding from CDI Capital helped take the business from a small desk-based business to a real business with patents awarded, a real working concept device and their first employees. It gave other investors the confidence to partner with LIQID Medical, and they have now grown to a mature start-up with a large team and a wide portfolio of patents and devices in clinical trials already. In November 2022 it was announced that the company had secured an investment of R30m from the SAB Foundation. See here: https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/319/233815.html
Patent awarded in Japan
There was more good news from LIQID this March as their OptiShunt device was awarded a patent in Japan with no amendments required. This gives LIQID very broad patent protection in Japan, which is their third biggest market globally. They are also working on European and US patents which are the two biggest markets and expect a response in the coming months.
More on the DISF and Hello Tomorrow
The DISF is a project of the Craft and Design Institute (CDI) with investment funds provided by the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) and support from the Western Cape Department of Economic Development and Tourism (DEDAT). The DISF is managed by CDI Capital – CDI Capital is a niche emerging impact funder, and subsidiary of the CDI non-profit.
The DISF funds designers, inventors, entrepreneurs and product developers with pre-revenue innovative technologies and tech-enabled ideas and products on an 80:20 split. These individuals/businesses are not able to raise funds easily from traditional banks or funding agencies because of the high risk associated with early-stage innovations. See: https://cdicapital.co.za/disf/
The Hello Tomorrow Challenge gives deep tech and science-based entrepreneurs around the globe a platform for their projects, providing opportunities for equity-free funding, global visibility and connections with key players in the deep tech ecosystem. See: https://hello-tomorrow.org/global-summit/
Watch our video on LIQID Medical here: