The Open Horizons journey continues with a new group of women-led deep-tech startups ready to transform bold ideas into real market pilots has joined Open Horizons. Following the evaluation of Open Call #2 applications, 12 startups from across Europe have now entered the Inception Phase of the programme. In this key stage they will prepare the selected teams for collaboration with corporates and future pilot implementation.
Meet the winners of Open Call 2
Working across sectors such as AI, quantum computing, water management, predictive maintenance, food waste reduction, advanced sensing technologies, and sustainable industry, these startups represent the diversity and innovation potential of Europe’s deep-tech ecosystem.
Aixima GmbH
Challenge targeted: IoT-Driven Asset Integrity and Predictive Maintenance
GULSINE LTD
Challenge targeted: Advanced Wastewater Recovery for Circular and Resilient Industrial Water Use
H+H LABS PSA
Challenge targeted: Advanced Wastewater Recovery for Circular and Resilient Industrial Water Use
Inclustera
Challenge targeted: Water Management, Digital Monitoring, and Reporting
IROC
Challenge targeted: IoT-Driven Asset Integrity and Predictive Maintenance
Nanomation
Challenge targeted: Smart Window Nano-Device for Predictive Maintenance and Sustainability Monitoring
Osborne Systems
Challenge targeted: Enhancing Energy Efficiency and Reducing Carbon Emissions in Refinery Operations
Quantonite
Challenge targeted: Quantum-Accelerated Resolution of Linear Maxwell Equations for Electromagnetic Field Simulation
Smart Indicators
Challenge targeted: AI-Powered Food Waste Reduction System
MB AI
Challenge targeted: Deep Learning Models for Predictive Lead Generation and Market Insight in Real Estate
Sqwish
Challenge targeted: Deep Learning Models for Predictive Lead Generation and Market Insight in Real Estate
Tisalytics Bio
Challenge targeted: Water Management, Digital Monitoring, and Reporting
For more information on the winners – pls see their profiles at the end of this article.
What happens during the Inception Phase?
The Inception Phase is the first step of the Open Horizons acceleration pathway. During e four weeks, startups will work closely with mentors, experts, and corporate partners to refine their Business Model Canvas (BMC), shape a robust Proof-of-Concept (PoC), define Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and milestones, and align their solutions with the matched corporate needs.
This phase ensures that startups move into piloting with strong technical, strategic, and commercial foundations. In this phase, only 7 startups will bring their concepts into action together with our partner industry leaders.
Looking ahead: pilots, Demo Days, and follow-on support
While Cohort 2 begins its Inception journey, the first Open Horizons cohort is already progressing through pilot implementation. In June, Cohort 1 startups will present their pilot results during the upcoming Demo Days, showcasing how women-led innovation can respond to real industrial challenges.
Beyond pilots, Open Horizons also supports startups through dedicated Follow-On and Feedback Loop activities. These are meant to help them explore commercial agreements, strategic partnerships, investment opportunities, corporate venture collaborations, and technology licensing pathways.
The programme is designed not only to support innovation, but to assist all the winning startups with building long-term market traction and sustainable growth.
Open Call #3, final oportunity is open – not for long
Open Call #3 is currently open and represents the final opportunity for women-led startups to join the programme. Applications are open until 19 May 2026, 17:00 CEST.
ANNEX
Profiles of short-listed start-ups under the Open call #1 of the Open Horizons initiative
Aixima GmbH (Germany)
Aixima GmbH develops validated, physics-informed digital twin solutions for asset integrity and predictive maintenance of safety-critical infrastructure. The company addresses the challenge that conventional monitoring and inspection methods detect damage too late and provide limited insight into underlying degradation mechanisms.
Aixima’s technology combines multiphysics modeling, real-time sensor data, and physics-informed AI to assess structural condition, predict failure risks, and support condition-based maintenance decisions. Its solutions are applied to pipeline and energy infrastructure, enabling earlier intervention, reduced downtime, improved safety, and extended asset lifetime.
Aixima works with industrial partners to translate scientifically validated models into deployable, regulator-ready decision-support tools.
More: https://aixima.de/
GULSINE LTD (United Kingdom)
Gulsine Ltd is a deep-tech company specialising in physics-based prediction of material ageing, degradation, and lifespan in safety- and performance-critical systems. The company addresses the widespread reliance on slow, trial-and-error qualification methods by replacing them with accelerated ageing science and physics-informed artificial intelligence.
Its flagship platform, A2P2-AI, enables predictive management of membranes and polymer-based components. In this way they can help industries extend asset lifespan, reduce energy and material waste, and deploy more sustainable, circular solutions across healthcare, water treatment, and advanced manufacturing.
More: https://www.gulsineltd.com
H+H LABS PSA (Poland)
HYDRATICO is a climatetech startup founded in 2022 in Poland. They developed a water treatment method using hydrodynamic evaporation based on supercavitation. The technology treats any water source, uses up to 10 times less energy than traditional methods, and is designed for mobile, modular deployment.
Their mission is to deliver affordable, sustainable water treatment to industries and communities, while protecting water resources. Hydratico helps clients comply with environmental regulations, reduce costs, and improve operational sustainability. They reached TRL 6 and are currently raising 1.5M EUR in pre-seed round.
More: https://www.hhlabs.tech/
Inclustera (Czech Republic)
Inclustera is a deep-tech company developing nano-material sensing technologies for rapid detection of hazardous compounds in water, soil and air. The company addresses a critical gap in environmental and industrial monitoring: the lack of reliable, continuous detection solutions for substances where even trace presence constitutes a safety risk.
Inclustera’s core technology is based on atomically precise molecular cluster sensors (APCS), enabling highly selective, sub-minute detection without reagents or laboratory infrastructure. Current offerings focus on APCS-based sensing integrated with paper, textile, polymer, and optical fibre substrates, combined with compatible readout hardware to provide early pollution warnings and support sustainable industrial operations.
More: https://www.inclustera.com
IROC (France)
IROC is a research startup founded in 2023, with the motto “Leveraging AI and IoT to improve Human-Centered Healthcare.” The company’s expertise initially focused on pharmacology, translational science, and AI-driven drug development, creating tools and platforms to support personalized therapeutics.
The company then evolved to develop IROC, an innovative technology dedicated to predictive monitoring of human health via IoT devices. IROC uses advanced training methods, enabling real-time, personalized monitoring across multiple pathologies and states. The platform illustrates theirapproach to translating research into practical applications, integrating AI, real-time data collection, and IoT systems to deliver scalable, safe, user-centered healthcare solutions.
More: https://iroc.app
Nanomation (United Kingdom)
Nanomation is a Cambridge-based start-up developing next-generation sensing solutions based on nanotechnology. Their main focus is building SWIR and MWIR sensors, which are lighter, more sensitive and operate at room temperature, making them over 60% cheaper than existing products.
The main applications include defence and security, oil and gas, and environmental monitoring. Their core Intellectual Property (IP) is the process of novel material integration, which is suitable for any substrate – including transparent and flexible – and can scale to other types of materials and applications such as biological, THz and quantum.
More: https://www.nanomation.tech
Osborne Systems (France)
Osborne Systems is a deep-tech engineering software company developing AI-driven tools to automate and standardize the design of industrial measurement systems used in energy and process industries. Acting upstream during engineering phases, the platform embeds validated engineering rules, standards, and physical models into a structured digital workflow for EPCs and system integrators. This reduces errors, overdesign, and engineering rework while improving design consistency and predictability.
Beyond oil and gas, Osborne Systems is expanding its R&D toward low-carbon infrastructures, including CO₂ capture, transport, and storage, enabling reliable measurement and monitoring of avoided emissions.
More: https://www.osborne-systems.com
Quantonite (United Kingdom)
Quantonite develops quantum computing algorithms and applications for real-world use cases. It’s time to unleash quantum computing’s capabilities helping companies to stay relevant in 2030. Their solutions are hardware vendor agnostic. They have developed a proprietary API to access superconducting quantum computers from various vendors without a lock-in effect. They have a proven track record of developed and deployed quantum algorithms with MVPs ready for Quantum Monte Carlo Simulation and Quantum Principal Component Analysis.
More: https://www.quantonite.com
Smart Indicators (Latvia)
Smart Indicators is a women-led deep-tech startup developing ultra-low-cost freshness indicators for food packaging and reusable meal-prep containers. Their patented-potential pigment chemistry reacts to biogenic amines produced during spoilage, changing color when food quality declines. A smartphone scan (computer-vision with a calibration reference) converts this color change into an objective “OK / Not OK” result, reducing subjectivity and enabling better stock rotation, discounting or donation decisions. They offer indicator prototypes, integration concepts for packaging/containers, and a pilot-ready scanning workflow for food businesses.
More: https://www.linkedin.com/company/94289433
Sqwish (United Kingdom)
Most generative AI foundation models are optimised for technical metrics (e.g., accuracy), not business results. Sqwish bridges this gap. They provide an AI optimisation platform for software businesses building AI software that uses reinforcement learning to autonomously tune AI systems (parameters, prompts, models, context) based on their real-time business signals such as conversion rates and customer satisfaction. This ensures their AI improves continuously and delivers measurable Return on Investment (ROI).
They are a venture-backed team of 7, working with 5 design partners including Samsung and Aikido, and are poised to make generative AI a reliable driver of business growth.
More: https://sqwish.ai
MB AI (Poland)
MB AI is a company operating in the tech sector. They focus on AI solution development, especially in regulated spaces. They have conducted projects in healthcare, finance, law, and deep-tech research areas. They have experience building solutions that are compliant by design and involve explainability of AI models. They have also worked on highly specialised machine learning model development and deployment aligned with EU regulatory frameworks.
More: https://wearembai.com
Tisalytics Bio (Serbia)
Tisalytics Bio is a women-led deep-tech startup specialising in bioinformatics and data analytics for environmental and industrial applications, with a primary focus on the water sector. The company addresses a key gap in water quality monitoring by analysing environmental DNA (eDNA) and microbial community data to capture biological processes often invisible to conventional physical and chemical measurements.
Its main product is a digital platform for detecting the risk of Harmful Algal Blooms in water ecosystems. In addition, the company offers eDNA data analysis services in agriculture and food production industries.
More: https://www.tisalyticsbio.com