energHius, the new CiTIUS spin-off that will collect energy from the environment at micrometric scale, presents its business model in a webinar aimed at the sector
Emerging as a result of the work of the Center's Artificial Vision Group, energHius seeks to bring to market more than two decades of experience in integrated circuit design.
New member in the family of technology-based companies that have emerged from research developed at CiTIUS: the startup energHius, designed to revolutionise the future of micro-energy collection, finalises its embryonic phase and will add its name in the coming months to the set of entrepreneurial initiatives promoted by the research centre of the USC. To explain their business model, and to talk about the line of products they intend to develop, the energHius team is organising a webinar on 29th October at 16:00. People or companies interested in attending can register free of charge by accessing the official form provided by the team responsible for the new technology-based company (EBT).
Supported by a team with more than two decades of experience in the design of integrated circuits, the future company aims to bring its innovation to the global market, making an innovative technology capable of capturing and managing energy at small levels, in the range of nanowatts (nW).
The main task of energHius will be to provide autonomy to devices such as bioimplantable systems or 'IoT' nodes (Internet of Things). A disruptive and highly innovative proposal, which will open up new possibilities in environments where energy availability is limited. The entrepreneurial initiative is the result of research work developed over the last twenty years by the group led by researcher Diego Cabello; in addition to the extensive experience provided by the USC professor, energHius counts on its founding team with members who have shaped the project, all linked to CiTIUS: Paula López, Víctor Brea, Fernando Pardo, Oscar Pereira and Daniel García.
Disruptive technology
energHius aims to develop a line of products for micro-energy collection. More specifically, the challenge facing the new company will be to manage to power different types of circuits (such as the aforementioned bioimplantable devices or IoT nodes), reducing the minimum input power of its energy management units to less than 10 nW.
In other words: the challenge will be to get these circuits to operate using one thousandth of the energy required by current technologies. This new paradigm will open the door to a whole new generation of autonomous IoT nodes capable of operating in an unsupervised way in environments with low energy availability, such as environmental sensors, real-time health monitoring devices, or sensor networks in smart cities, among others. The energy harvesting technology developed by energHius will target applications with very low consumption, so its ability to operate in minimal energy environments is a key competitive advantage in these sectors.
energHius will follow a company model without factories, or fabless, as it is known in the semiconductor sector for manufacturers that lack their own silicon wafer fabrication plants and specialise in design and chip marketing. The company will design its own integrated circuits and outsource manufacturing to specialised third parties; a strategy that will allow it to concentrate its activities on innovation and development, without incurring the high management costs of running a production plant.
Promising trajectory
The project has already achieved several important milestones, including its passage through the Opportunity Validation phase of the startup accelerator The Collider, from Mobile World Capital Barcelona, and its entry into the Business Validation phase. In addition, only in 2024 and in the middle of the gestation period, energHius has already received significant recognition, such as being one of the three winning initiatives of the Santander X Spain - University Awards. This recognition of the CiTIUS team's work is further supported by its role as a finalist in the Semente Ribeira Sacra Business Project Competition, an initiative that promotes entrepreneurship in Galicia.