Two entrepreneurial projects related with the University have obtained the funding they needed after participating in the II UPF Investment Forum, organized by the Innovation Unit-UPF Business Shuttle in December 2014.

The meeting helped the two proposals get into contact with the ESADE BAN network of investors and with Capital Cell and Crowdcube, two crowdfunding platforms.

Drug discovery through zebra fish

The scientific enterprise ZeClinics was founded by four researchers from UPF:  Davide D'Amico,  Javier Terriente,  Ignasi Sahún and  Simone Calzolari. Their proposal is to evaluate the biomedical safety and significance of new molecules using zebra fish in their investigations. Offering a cheap, fast and reliable range of customized assays, the company seeks to promote the discovery of new traditional medicines.

ZeClinics has become Spain's most successful scientific crowdfunding campaign so far in 2015. After 88 days' campaigning on the Capital Cell platform, the project received €100,000 from 64 different investors.

Loans with higher yield and fairer interest

Meanwhile, Zank is a platform offering loans between private individuals (crowdlending). Its aim is to connect solvent people who are looking for a loan at a fairer interest rate with investors who wish to obtain higher returns on their savings.

This start-up, founded by Oriol Chimenos, a UPF graduate in Business Management and Administration, along with two partners, is the only "crowdlending" platform to have a system integrated with users' online banking that allow obtaining in real time 100% verified data.

As a result of the II UPF Investment Forum, Zank received a round of financing of €245,000. The largest contribution was made by the ESADE BAN network of investors via the Crowdcube crowdfunding platform.