Startup Highlights from the Start of 2024
Updates on funding, awards, and more from UCSB Affiliated Startups.
Congratulations, Xiresta, Inc.!
Congratulations to Xiresta, on receiving stage II funding from the Incate, the Incubator for Antibacterial Therapies in Europe. Xiresta is a UCSB startup and the second startup to receive funding, which totals €250k.
Xiretsa is a biotechnology company developing novel membrane-remodeling small-molecule antibiotics that evade resistance to address the greatest Gram-negative, Gram-positive, and Mycobacterial threats. The company is dedicated to tailoring its proprietary molecular platform to meet critical unmet needs in infectious disease therapy. Read the full press release HERE.
Congratulations, Quintessent!
Congratulations to Quintessent on their oversubscribed Seed funding round, closing at just over $11.5 million. Quintessent is developing optical connectivity solutions to interconnect compute and switch chips with massively accelerated and power-efficient bandwidth across the datacenter. Leveraging multiple innovations spanning materials, device/circuit design, and link architecture, Quintessent technology simultaneously reduces power consumption and required component count while multiplying bandwidth density.
Congratulations, Nereid Biomaterials!
Congratulations to UCSB Startup Neried Biomaterials on taking home the "People's Choice Award" at the 2024 Pacific Coast Business Times Startup Village and Innovation Awards.
Nereid Biomaterials develops biodegradable plastics for use in ocean applications, including fishing, aquaculture, and the ocean Internet of Things. Their products have tunable degradation rates tested in real ocean conditions, and leave no microplastics or toxic byproducts behind. Rigorous measurement of material properties ensures the functionality of replacing plastic with biomaterials and the material is adaptable to current manufacturing processes.
Nereid Biomaterials shares the "People's Choice Award" with Wayside Energy from Cal Lutheran.
Congratulations, The Hurd Co!
Congratulations to The Hurd Co on their selection as one of five finalists at the SXSW Innovation Awards.
In additional news, The Hurd Co is serving as the industry partner for a $1.45M Department of Energy grant led by UC Riverside that will focus on optimizing the production of dissolving pulp used to manufacture extruded textile fibers. The technology has the potential to reduce carbon intensity by 50-75% and operating costs by 10-20%.
