CRAASH Barcelona kicks off with meeting of projects and CIMIT mentors

CRAASH Barcelona, the new Biocat acceleration program, kicked off this April with the first on-site meeting of expert mentors from CIMIT (Boston) and the eight projects selected to participate in the program. CRAASH Barcelona is organized by Biocat in collaboration with CIMIT (Boston) and it is part of the EIT Health bootcamps program.  

For two days, the mentors and teams, with collaboration from Barcelona Tech City, held several work sessions and one-to-one mentoring meetings with the seven expert mentors from CIMIT (Boston), the most experienced health accelerator in the world. Over 15 years, CIMIT has successfully accelerated more than 600 healthtech projects, doubled the rate of successful commercialization and cut the time-to-next-phase by more than half.

 “We signed up for CRAASH Barcelona because we want to have access to a network of international mentors to expand our project into other countries, for example by contacting hospitals in Boston,” explains Alfons Carnicero, UPC researcher and co-founder of one of the participating projects: ABLE. “CRAASH Barcelona and the guidance of the CIMIT experts will help us take onboard the knowledge culture of our potential clients through interviews,” Carnicero highlights.

“We’re very excited to be part of CRAASH Barcelona and I’m sure we can learn many lessons from the experience of Biocat and the CIMIT mentors,” highlights Flavia Wahl, CEO of the Irish company iBreve, another participating project, which develops a wearable device to improve stress resilience by analyzing users’ breathing patterns with machine learning.

The mentors that have traveled to Barcelona for the CRAASH Barcelona kick-off event are John M. Collins, COO i director d’Implementació de Tecnologia de CIMIT; Mike Dempsey, Entrepreneur in Residence del CIMIT I líder de la seva acceleradora; Eric J. Evans, membre del comitè executiu de Mass Medical Angels i del comitè de screening de Launchpad Ventures; Wolfgang Krull, expert en direcció d’operacions a la indústria de tecnologies mediques; Paul Tessier, cofundador de Radianse i fundador de Technology Innovators; Josh Tolkoff, executiu de CIMIT Accelerator; i Joel Weinstein, president de MAVEN Medical Device Strategies.

During their time in Barcelona, the CIMIT experts gave a conference open to the whole sector. 

Next stops: Paris, Delft i Boston

CRAASH Barcelona is an intensive 12-week program divided into three phases. The first phase (April to June) will allow teams to validate whether their technology can cover a real need and find a place on the market. After this initial meeting in Barcelona, the teams will continue working with the CIMIT experts through web meetings.

The second phase of CRAASH Barcelona will allow teams to validate their project in two other European markets, France and the Netherlands, through visits to the Medicen (Paris) and Yesdelft! (Delft) ecosystems in July and September.

Finally, the CRAASH Barcelona teams will also be able to network and validate their projects in the Boston ecosystem, which is one of the most important in the healthcare sector. All of the teams will pitch their projects in October to the Boston ecosystem, and two of them will be selected to extend their stay in the city with a three-week immersion program.

CRAASH Barcelona is part of the bootcamp programs run by EIT Health, the main European healthcare consortium.

With the support of*:

* With the support of the Department of Enterprise and Knowledge and the co-financing of the ESF