One year following its incorporation, ELDICO Scientific, benefitting from research and development cooperations with the PSI, has successfully closed a seed funding round. The company raised almost CHF 1.5 million from private and institutional investors, BERNINA BioInvest, several industry-savvy private investors, the Aargauische Kantonalbank (AKB) and Venture Kick. ELDICO will be launching the first electron diffractometer specially designed for nano-crystallographic research.
ELDICO Scientific, a Swiss Startup launching an innovative electron diffractometer has successfully closed a seed funding round. The company raised almost CHF 1.5 million from private and institutional investors. Lead investor BERNINA BioInvest, and several industry-savvy private entities such as the Aargauische Kantonalbank (AKB) and the Swiss start-up promotion organization Venture Kick are also among the investors. ELDICO will be launching the first electron diffractometer specially designed for nano-crystallographic research, allowing the characterization of samples that are much smaller than current systems allow for suppliers and development partners from five countries are contributing to the project, including the Swedish company Excillum, the German companies Axilon and SmarAct as well as the world's leading Swiss manufacturer of 2D detectors, Dectris.
During the development of its device, ELDICO benefitted from research and development cooperations with the PSI. PSI supported ELDICO in pilot studies, achieving the proof-of-principle and product development. ELDICO received technical knowhow from PSI especially in regards to electron optical parameters particularly critical for the diffraction of small crystals, strategies for optimizing the transmission electron microscope for diffraction applications, optimization of experimental parameters, and application to catalysis research. Interestingly, this refers to the essential question already raised by Paul Scherrer after which the PSI is named, about the atomic structure of microcrystalline substances.
