Inventors of the first-ever flushable pregnancy test, Lia Diagnostics has just won the Startup Battlefield @ Disrupt Berlin 2017

An annual conference hosted by TechCrunch since 2011, Disrupt is the world’s leading authority in debuting revolutionary startups, introducing game-changing technologies and discussing what’s top of mind for the tech industry’s key innovators.

San Francisco, New York, London and Berlin (4-5 December, 2017) hosted the conference which has 4 major directions:

Startup Battlefield: brings the world’s top early stage startups together on one stage to compete for the coveted Disrupt Cup, a $50,000 prize, and the attention of media and investors
Thought Leadership: the most important topics facing today’s tech landscape
Startup Alley: the place where hundreds of early-stage companies showcase their talent and technology to attendees, investors and members of the press
Hackathon: exciting events where hundreds of coders and developers come together to form teams which have just shy of 24 hours to build something amazing from the ground up

And the winner is… Lia Diagnostics

Since appearing on the TechCrunch stage, Battlefield “graduates” have collectively raised over $6.6 billion. [source]

This year, there were 5 finalists @Startup Battlefield: Blik, Caspar Health, eTrack Tech, Lia Diagnostics and Wandelbots.

And they were the judges: Suranga Chandratillake (Balderton Capital), Tugce Ergul (Angel Labs), Luciana Lixandru (Accel Partners), Matthew Panzarino (TechCrunch) and Mark Schmitz (Lakestar)

The winner of the €42,000 prize was Lia Diagnostics, a company founded in 2015 by Bethany Edwards and Anna Simpson.

Based in Philadelphia, Lia is a team of seven full-time and growing. It’s backed by seed funding from DreamIt Ventures, Ben Franklin Technology Partners, and other angel investors. [source]

About their product:

The Lia pregnancy test will be the first-ever flushable test to hit the market, offering a more sustainable, disposable, convenient and private way for women to find out if they’re pregnant or not
Lia’s tests are made from a special paper that will disperse in water and biodegrade, allowing it to be flushed
The product has received FDA approval
The test will cost between $9 and $22 (the prices for a single generic test to an advanced digital one).

“Single-use diagnostics are only used for a couple of minutes, and they’re all made out of plastic and non-sustainable materials,” said Bethany Edwards for TechCrunch

And here is the presentation from Disrupt Berlin 2017:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHwCt5E4Tqk

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The next Disrupt conference hosted by TechCrunch will take place in San Francisco, on September 5-7, 2018.