qCella receives 1.3 million francs in early financing

(CONNECT) qCella can access 1.3 million Swiss francs in fresh capital. The company, which was founded in 2023 as a spin-off of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH), announced that it had raised this sum in a pre-seed financing round. In addition to the Kick Foundation (Venture Kick), the Kickfund, the ETH Foundation and the Swisspreneur Syndicate, business angels from networks such as Business Angels Switzerland, Aare Ventures, Business Angel Club Kanton Aargau and Winti Ventures also participated.

qCella has developed a new technology that heats people directly instead of heating entire rooms and the interior of cars. Instead, the company relies on heating mats made from copper-cellulose hybrid fibers, which can be cut to any size and integrated cost-effectively into the end product to be heated. Unlike commercially available heating wires, these thin and smooth heating mats are designed to heat evenly everywhere and are also more energy-efficient because no layer of padding is required between the mat and the human body.

qCella intends to use the proceeds from the financing round to scale up the production of its copper-cellulose hybrid fibers and work with external partners to manage the transition from batch production to roll-to-roll paper production. In addition, the heating technology is to be tested in an end customer product at the end of 2025. According to the information provided, the start-up has already secured paid pilot projects for the current year, from heated shoe insoles to surface heating for electric vehicles and systems for heating food.

qCella is based in the ETH Laboratoryfor Multifunctional Materials and was supported by the Winterthur RUNWAY Startup Incubator, among others. In its own press release, RUNWAY says it is "excited to see what the future holds for qCella and the continued impact of this groundbreaking technology". ce/mm