New Born Solutions, second runner-up in IMAGINE IF! acceleration final in Cambridge

Spanish start-up New Born Solutions, led by Javier Jiménez, is developing new technology to prevent childhood meningitis and was chosen as the second runner-up in the IMAGINE IF! acceleration final held at the University of Cambridge on 22 September, featuring 14 teams from different cities in Europe and Asia.

New Born Solutions will receive guidance from top world leaders through an acceleration program to continue developing its technology, Neosonics. Furthermore, they will get to participate in the Investors Conference in Cambridge in January 2017. New Born Solutions represented the city of Barcelona in the IMAGINE IF! final.

Innovation Forum, the company that organizes the program, designed IMAGINE IF! to accelerate the development of science-based entrepreneurial projects in various cities. The program, still in its first year, has several phases: the pre-acceleration program, Demo Day, the Innovation Forum Leaders Conference pitch, the acceleration program and the pitch to investors.

Before the global final in Cambridge, 15 cities in Europe and Asia held local finals to select the start-ups that would represent each city in the grand final. IMAGINE IF! Barcelona, organized by Innovation Forum Barcelona and IQS Tech Factory, chose New Born Solutions from the 10 participating start-ups.

The medical device created by New Born Solutions uses a non-invasive ultrasound system to count white blood cells in the cerebrospinal fluid under the infant’s fontanelle. This allows them to detect possible cases of meningitis and then, if necessary, perform lumbar punctures on newborns, which could lower the costs of this analysis.

The winner of the Cambridge final was British start-up NG Safe, which has developed technology to ensure proper positioning of nasogastric feeding tubes and prevent future complications. NG Safe received a prize of £30,000.