If you thought graduation season was over, think again! While many people and institutions are starting to gear up for another school year, one Innovation Quarter tenant is celebrating a graduation of a different kind.
In June, Brinter, a healthtech startup that is part of the regenerative medicine hub in the iQ, completed the world-renowned Techstars Healthcare Accelerator. This prestigious international accelerator is on a mission to help entrepreneurs succeed by providing mentorship, guidance, investment and more over a three-month accelerator program.
The accelerator is tough to get into and tougher to complete, but at the end, entrepreneurs of all kinds reap benefits that have helped launch more than 4,400 companies in over 60 countries.
Brinter is the first company to commercialize 3D-printed biosynthetic mesh implants. It is also the first company from Winston-Salem to be selected for the Techstars program, which is a validation of both the entrepreneurs who founded the company and the products the startup is developing.
Meet Brinter
Brinter is developing 3D printing technologies that bioprint tissue implants that will one day replace damaged human tissue. Their first product will be biosynthetic, which means that they will mimic some aspects of a patient’s own tissue. As a result, injuries can heal faster and surgical procedures have less complications. The company’s initial products are not yet approved for use in humans, which is why Brinter pursued the Techstars program—to find the best path toward that outcome.
Located now in Winston-Salem, Brinter’s roots are international. Co-founder Tom Alapaattikoski, from Finland originally, is an experienced entrepreneur with a background in software technology. He started his first company when he was in college, and subsequent companies left him with funds that he was ready to invest. He put those funds into Brinter. He took over the CEO position for Brinter in 2021 and relocated the company to the U.S.–first to California and then to Winston-Salem, where Brinter could be part of the regenerative medicine hub growing in the iQ.
“I was looking for a place where we could grow our business here in the U.S. and change the world by taking these implants to patients,” Alapaattikoski says.
The move to Winston-Salem put Alapaattikoski in contact with Matthew Brovold, PhD, who is the CSO and co-founder of Brinter. Brovold had finished his PhD at Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine and was completing postdoctoral work on bioinks, when the two met.
“I had been working a lot with tissue engineering, organoid manufacturing, and 3D printing, and Tom needed someone to manage the actual science operations to make the implants,” Brovold says. “Long story short, I became CSO and co-founder and here we are today, with plans to put out our first product commercial within 18 months.”
Those first commercial products will be tissue implants to help repair tears in the Achilles tendon and the rotator cuff, two notoriously difficult injuries to fix. But these two implants are the first of many to come. One of Brinter’s innovations is the 3D printing platform that allows them to print the implants, a platform that is able to be used for many other applications.
Narrowing down which applications to commercialize first was one of the reasons that brought Brinter to Techstars.
Why Techstars Is a Big Deal
The Techstars organization provides a lot of benefits for companies selected for one of their many accelerators, providing mentorship that can help startups with a litany of problem areas, from access to capital to finding customers, from hiring talent to building infrastructure.
“No one has ever commercialized a 3D-bioprinted mesh implant before,” Alapaattikoski says. “Having a technology that is completely new, we wanted to build an advisory board for ourselves, and Techstars is very good at that.”
In addition to providing mentorship and coaching, Techstars is made up of investors and also provides connections to a lot of other investors through its network. Going through the program creates high visibility for startups and can provide the connections a company needs to grow.
But companies have to be accepted first, and the selection process is a rigorous one.
“Out of thousands of applicants to the accelerator, only one percent of those candidates are accepted,” Brovold says.
One of the big factors that Techstars takes a hard look at is the entrepreneurs themselves.
“They’re trying to find a person who wants to take the company to the next level, so a lot of the program is training the entrepreneurs to take those next steps,” Alapaattikoski says.
Once Brinter made it through the strenuous selection process, the hard work really began. During the three months that the program lasted, Alapaattikoski and Brovold traveled all over the U.S., selected mentors, and made valuable connections.
Their mentors helped Brinter work through a number of important issues–like how to grow their team and recruit talent, as well as zeroing in on which products to focus on taking to the market first.
“We have a technology and a method of making implants, but what is the actual best first application for patients?” Alapaattikoski says. “Our mentors helped us work through that question, as well as what applications investors will find the most interesting.”
“A lot of what we worked on was perfecting our pitch for people in the healthcare space in a way that’s digestible,” Brovold says. “We were able to refine that, so that we can communicate clearly with investors and others about our products.”
Techstars Lessons for Entrepreneurs of All Levels
When it comes to entrepreneurship, Alapaattikoski and Brovold came into the Techstars program with two different levels of experience. For Alapaattikoski, Brinter was not his first rodeo, but with the Techstars accelerator experience, he received valuable input from an outside perspective.
As an experienced entrepreneur, you can become a little too confident in your own kind of experience,” Alapaattikoski says. “Having professionals who are actually way better than you at pitching and can tell you that you are wrong helps you start learning again. That ended up being the most beneficial for me personally, to be open-minded with advisors and hearing their advice.”
For Brovold, the Techstars experience held a different lesson. Brinter is his first stint as a CSO, and he found a lot of support and connections through the program that helped him really settle into his role.
“Through Techstars, I interacted with people who hold similar positions in other companies, people who have been in the business before and have commercialized medical technologies,” Brovold. “Meeting other people going through some of the same struggles and finding mentors who have done this before and done it successfully has been a huge benefit for me.”
While not every company gets selected for Techstars accelerators, both Brinter co-founders believe that just applying to the program can provide a lot of valuable input for startups and the entrepreneurs powering them.
“With the Techstars program, even if you are just applying and don’t get selected, you’ll get feedback from these people,” Alapaattikoski says. “Their passion is actually to help businesses, and they really go above and beyond in making businesses successful.”
“But if you do get in, get ready to work,” Brovold says. “Be prepared to work the most you’ve ever worked in your entire life, as you support your business on top of doing a full-time Techstars accelerator.”
What’s Next for Brinter After Techstars
Now that the startup has graduated from Techstars, they are hitting the ground running. Brinter is looking to acquire additional innovations and companies in the bioimplant space to expand its portfolio, while simultaneously finishing up their fundraising and heading into preclinical trials to earn 510(k) clearance from the FDA for the company’s first soft tissue implant.
“After completing the Techstars accelerator, our main goals were to close this round of funding so that we can start the trials and, at the same time, build the team we need to finalize the product for the trials,” Brovold says.
While Brinter is the first Winston-Salem company to go through the Techstars program, they hope to be the first of many.
“We’re proud of being a Winston-Salem company,” Alapaattikoski says. “North Carolina, in general, has been a good accelerator for our company. We’ve seen North Carolina do a lot to accelerate healthcare, biotech, and med tech businesses. We hope to see more companies coming like us to North Carolina, which would help the whole ecosystem grow.”
Learn more about the regenerative medicine hub emerging in Winston-Salem and discover the breadth of the entrepreneurial ecosystem growing in the iQ.
