FORGE awards grants to help Connecticut startups move from prototype to production

By Liese Klein, Staff Writer

STRATFORD — From a spare room in their New Haven apartment, Clémence Bruguier and her boyfriend developed two medical devices they hope will revolutionize breast care.

“It’s very simple, it’s very cheap, because we want people to be able to use it often at scale,” Bruguier said of their first marketed product, a nitrile cup that helps women do more thorough breast checks at home. 

On Thursday, Bruguier walked away with a $62,978 check from manufacturing accelerator FORGE to help her company, Mirabelle Medical, get to the next level. 

“This funding is literally life-changing,” Bruguier said. “We’re going to go from our five prototypes to being able to create our products and send them to our customers.”

Mirabelle Medical was one of three startups to receive Make It Here: CT Product Development Grant awards from FORGE after the most competitive contest ever in the nonprofit’s three-year history in Connecticut, President Laura Teicher said.

“That shows not only is the innovation here, but these are very proactive innovators,” she said. This year’s contest in the state saw more life science and climate tech entrepreneurs applying for grants, which allow startups to connect with in-state manufacturers to develop their products, Teicher said. 

The other winners were OHM,  which sells specialized equipment for physical training, and Hera Materials, a company that makes sustainable packaging materials. The winners were matched with nine Connecticut manufacturing companies specializing in plastics, tools and other elements of their products.

The FORGE event was hosted by Kubtec, a medical imaging company that has grown from a couple working out of their spare bedroom in Fairfield to nearly 100 employees in 20 years. The company is preparing to move to a much larger facility in Trumbull to accommodate expansion, co-founder Vikram Butani said.

Read the full article on Greenwich Time or CT Insider.