June 23, 2026
On June 23, five Northwestern-affiliated startups took the stage in San Francisco at the second annual Midwest Deep Tech Demo Day, a flagship event celebrating the launch of Third Coast Foundry, a new innovation hub connecting eight leading Midwest universities with investors, industry partners, and the broader Bay Area technology ecosystem.
Representing Northwestern's entrepreneurial community were:
- Astroform (Trevor A.) — developing inflatable metal structures for applications in space, defense, and energy.
- AstraClips (Rahul Islam, Ph.D.) — enabling seamless multilingual video translation.
- HIDENN-AI (Gino Domel) — advancing physics-based AI tools that allow engineers to interact with complex models using natural language.
- Mattiq (Andrey Ivankin) — accelerating materials discovery through an AI-powered experimental platform.
- MINERALIZE, LLC (Daiki Shoji) — creating sustainable, cost-effective technologies to mitigate coastal erosion and strengthen shorelines.
The startups' participation highlights the depth of innovation emerging from Northwestern and the broader Midwest, as Third Coast Foundry works to strengthen connections between university research, entrepreneurship, and venture capital on a national stage.