Almost half a year ago Expara, a Singapore-based VC fund, announced the launch of an Accelerator dedicated to start-ups developing solutions for a post-pandemic world. Expara and its Partners searched the world for the best technologies. Finally, they accepted 16 start-ups from countries such as Singapore, Australia, Israel, Poland, Canada, Belarus, Sweden, Pakistan, India, USA and Thailand. For the past 3 months, these teams were going through the programme that consists of weekly workshops and mentoring sessions. On the 23rd of September, the start-ups will be pitching to local and global investors at the online Demo Day.
“We launched this accelerator because the 2020 pandemic should be a wake-up call for the hyper-connected world to our vulnerability to pandemics in the 21st century. We will never go back to the way things were in 2019 – that world is gone forever. The probability of a potentially worse pandemic in the future is 100%; it is just a question of when it will happen. Hopefully, we will build a much better new normal starting today and be much better prepared for the next outbreak, in part due to new products and services created by start-ups.”- says Douglas Abrams, CEO of Expara.
The teams invented faster ways of detecting viruses or collecting data how it spreads, thus providing the appropriate risk management tools. Moreover, the entrepreneurs are already testing digital physiotherapy to enable those with physical injuries to continue the recovery process remotely. Finally, there is a start-up that addresses children’s anxiety and mental health, an issue that has displayed significantly more prevalence during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We are now living in a new normal that we have to accept and adjust to. We believe that innovative technologies can help the whole society not only to make this post-pandemic world better, but also to detect and prevent the next outbreak – or at least mitigate its negative effects at a quicker rate. That is why we want to support entrepreneurs in their mission.” – says Paulina Bialek, Head of the Expara VirTech Global Accelerator.
If you want to meet the start-ups or find out more about the solutions they are working on, join the online Demo Day that is on the 23rd of September at 7 pm SGT / 1 pm CET. For more information send us an e-mail: virtech@expara.com
