Aria Hahn (L) Brianna Blaney (R)
Isolation, the perpetual threat of illness, and supply chain disruptions in the third year of the pandemic, compounded by the ominous portent of severe weather events, can challenge the optimism of even the most glass half-full people. But not some of the entrepreneurs coming out of the HATCH startup accelerator at UBC. Six years after its founding in the Institute for Computing, Information, and Cognitive Systems (ICICS), HATCH is seeing more of its alumni starting second or third ventures than ever before, a measure of both their tenacity and the success of the program.
The textbook definition of a serial entrepreneur is “a person who regularly starts new businesses through a series of their own consistent ideas.” However, that definition doesn’t denote the risk, poverty, hard work, sleepless nights, and optimism required of a serial entrepreneur. That’s why we at HATCH are so pleased to see a number of familiar faces in our Venture Builder Program this year.
Mehrsa Raeiszadeh has recently joined HATCH as the founder of Mintlist, a platform developed by TrafficDriven Technologies that enables private individuals to securely sell their car for the most money in under 24 hours, from home. Mehrsa and her team at Mintlist were the winners of the top prize in the 2021 New Ventures BC (NVBC) competition. Mehrsa also has the distinct honour of being the only person in the history of the competition to have been part of NVBC first prize-winning teams twice. Her former venture, Microdermics, which created a novel hollow microneedle platform with applications in bio-sensing and intradermal drug delivery, won first prize in 2016.
Sahan Ranamukha, another Microdermics founder, has launched a new venture that joined HATCH in January, called ProtonIntel. The company is developing real-time, continuous biomarker monitoring to provide clinically actionable data that will stop disease progression and save lives. Their first target biomarker is potassium (K+), which controls heart contraction and is maintained at correct levels by the kidneys. Kidney disease thus threatens the heart, with K+ a critical vital sign. Potassium imbalances due to chronic kidney disease (CKD) can lead to heart arrhythmias and sudden cardiac-related death. CKD dialysis patients alone generate >500,000 inpatient admissions and more than 33,000 deaths per year in the U.S., costing payors $7B.
Sahan’s co-founder is Francis Steiner, the HATCH-ICICS entrepreneur-in-residence and a serial entrepreneur extraordinaire. Francis is on his fifth startup; his fourth venture, which focused on tracking falls in senior living facilities, was sold to Philips Healthcare several years ago. Francis, who helped found HATCH in 2016, has also been integral to mentoring multiple startups at UBC.
Two startup founders Francis has worked with are Brianna Blaney and Aria Hahn, cofounders of Pocketed, a highly successful grant-matching platform. Both entrepreneurs joined HATCH in 2018. Brianna joined as the founder of DeepND, which helps retailers hire and retain better workers using artificial intelligence, and Aria as the founder of Koonkie, which develops data-intensive, tailored informatics solutions such as therapeutic targets by integrating a wide range of physical, chemical and biological measurements with genomic sequence information. After meeting in HATCH training sessions, the two decided to collaborate on DeepND. Subsequent pandemic lockdowns, however, reduced the need for DeepND’s services. Ever resilient, the two launched Pocketed in just 14 weeks, and now employ numerous interns and other staff.
Always one to lead by example, ICICS Director Rob Rohling also has multiple ventures. Sonic Incytes enables routine, ultrasound-based assessment and management of liver health with diagnostic accuracy. The company was part of the first cohort of HATCH, and just completed a US$7.3M Series A funding round. Rohling’s other venture Sonus Microsystems, is developing polymer-based ultrasound transducers to replace traditional piezoelectric transducers at a fraction of the cost. Sonus is currently in HATCH and has also closed a round of funding.
Despite facing serious obstacles beyond those usually confronting startup founders, serial entrepreneurship is alive and well on campus, and is an exemplary model of resiliency. Read more about HATCH here.