University of Copenhagen runs no less than three student start-up communities. One of these is the Copenhagen Science City-located SUND Hub. The hub is primarily dedicated to introducing students to tools and methods of entreprenurship and innovation and to give them a taste for translating their professional insights into products that help patients. Spinning out businesses is a secondary concern. Nonetheless, some of the teams do rather well. By Jes Andersen.

80 teams. Half raised funds

SUND Hub is a Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences- initiative. It invites teams with a health- or care idea to join the community if at least one team-member is a student at University of Copenhagen. Since its inception in 2015 the community has hosted over 80 teams. Half of these have made it to the point where they could raise funding and create turnover.

Soft-, medium- and really hard money

Some teams have attracted soft money in the form of grants from programmes such as Innobooster, EIT Health and “Mikrolegat”. Others have found private investors or borrowed capital and a few have invested their own money. Taken together the 40 teams have raised DKK 60 million (8 million Euro) in funding, borrowed seven million, invested 13 million of their own money and created a turnover of DKK 13 million (1,7 million Euro)

Ideal location for student health start-ups

SUND Hub is located at 41 Nørre Allé, directly across from the University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at Panum. This location is ideal for a number of reasons:

• Easy access for students who wish to translate ideas for health innovation into practice and marketable solutions.
• Start-ups have more than 13.000 health and care students within easy reach at the University of Copenhagen and University College Copenhagen study programmes.
• Health- and welfare-tech businesses have access to a state-of-the-art testing and developing environment at University College Copenhagen, House of Practice and Innovation.
• University Hospital Rigshospitalet with 10.000 staff and 270.000 annual patients is just across the street.

How to join and what to expect

In order to get access to the community a founder needs to apply before graduation, have at least one University of Copenhagen-student on the team and be commited to solving a problem or working on an idea within health and care. There is no obligation to start a company. Teams that are admitted to the SUND Hub community get access to a number of features. These include:

• Free office space day long, year round
• Meeting and kitchen facilities with free coffee, tea and fruit
• Makerspace for prototyping
• Mentoring and business acceleration advice
• A network of other entrepreneurial students
• Talks, training and workshops

Looking for a start-up job?

Students looking for a start-up to join could start their search at the homepages of Copenhagen Science City’s seven innovation hubs
Start-ups looking for students to recruit could start their search on Copenhagen Science City’s listing of matchmaking and internship-programmes.

students, startups, health and care professionals, patients and next of kin are always welcome to get in touch with General Manager of Sund Hub, Martin B. Justesen.

Read more (in Danish) here…