2024’s Startup Battlefield runner-up geCKo Materials reveals four new products at TechCrunch Disrupt

The 2024 runner-up successful the TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield, geCKo Materials, returned to the signifier astatine this year’s amusement to debut caller products arsenic it pushes deeper into commercializing its tech.

Founder Dr. Capella Kerst revealed 4 caller uses of geCKo’s super-strong adust adhesive: a semiconductor wafer handling tool, a robotic gripper for creaseless surfaces (like star panels oregon glass), a curved robotic “end effector” for much irregular shapes, and an all-purpose gripper for robotic arms.

The geCKo tech is inspired by the mode real-life lizards usage their feet to grip surfaces. Kerst positions it similar a caller signifier of Velcro, but 1 that leaves nary residue, tin rapidly connect and detach, and requires nary electrical complaint oregon suction. A one-inch tile of the worldly tin clasp 16 pounds, and the geCKo adust adhesive tin connect arsenic galore arsenic 120,000 times — and tin enactment attached for seconds, minutes, oregon years.

The quality to rapidly accommodate the adust adhesive to existing manufacturing, picking, and different robotic applications has proven popular. Kerst’s institution won implicit Ford, NASA, and Pacific Gas & Electric arsenic customers earlier she adjacent competed connected past year’s Battlefield stage.

“Has this twelvemonth flown by arsenic rapidly for anybody other arsenic it has for us?” Kerst said connected the TechCrunch Disrupt signifier connected Wednesday. The geCKo CEO said her institution has tripled the size of her squad since past year’s amusement and completed an $8 cardinal fundraise. And geCKo’s adust adhesive was utilized connected six abstraction missions successful the past twelvemonth — a testament to the material’s quality to enactment successful aggregate environments, including a vacuum, according to Kerst.

On signifier Wednesday, Kerst showed disconnected a Fanuc robotic limb utilizing six geCKo tiles to rapidly drawback and determination objects around, earlier showing videos of the different commercialized applications.

In 1 of those videos, Kerst showed geCKo’s worldly being utilized to safely determination semiconductor wafers faster than existent suction oregon vacuum tech allows.

“Our customers astatine TSMC, Samsung, Intel, and Kawasaki said we person a extremity to [move the wafers] astatine 2Gs of acceleration,” she said. “We decided to stroke them retired of the h2o and bash 5.4Gs of acceleration repeatedly, reliably, utilizing geCKo materials.”