Nanotechnology Engineering alumni Derek Jouppi, Andrew Martinko and Chad Sweeting (BASc ’14) have taken their 2014 Capstone Design project worldwide, with SPOTTM, a smart UV indicating sticker that helps people remember that sunscreen wears away. Suncayr’s easy-to-apply body sticker changes colour when sunscreen reapplication is necessary, providing a simple and effective reminder.
While the Suncayr founders kept true to their end goal, which was to reduce skin cancer by helping everyone use sunscreen more effectively, the method they had originally envisioned changed considerably.
In 2013, the Capstone team set out to develop an idea with startup potential. They aimed to provide sunscreen wearers with information that would indicate when their invisible sunscreen was no longer providing adequate protection.
With the guidance of chemical engineering professor Nasser Mohieddin Abukhdeir, they developed the core technology behind their product: a colour-changing ink that could be drawn on the skin where it would provide a visual indicator when sunscreen was no longer effective. Throughout the company’s early years, NE Lab Manager of Teaching, Jenn Coggan, was actively involved, advising on various start-up decisions, including materials, scale-up manufacturing and IP direction.
Suncayr’s idea won many awards and they achieved many firsts: they were the first Canadian team to become an international runner-up for the James Dyson Award and part of the first cohort of Concept Science (formerly known as Velocity Science), which offers University of Waterloo students lab space and equipment for product development exclusively. Progress was swift… until their market research showed that moms, who typically discourage their children from drawing on themselves, were not interested in their plan.
The reinvention of their product into its current ‘sticker’ format required significant technical development, grant writing and travel. Between 2014 and 2019, Suncayr worked with five incubators and accelerators, in Waterloo, Ontario; Toronto, Ontario; Buffalo, New York; San Diego, California; and Brisbane, Australia. After perfecting the technical aspect of their product and learning the retail ropes, SPOTMYUV™ is now sold in the US, Canada, Australia, Barbados, UK, Austria, and Germany.
To learn the story behind SPOTMYUV™ and Suncayr, one of the first deeptech startups incubated at the Velocity Incubator, read Suncayr: from deeptech to the dawning of a global brand.
Advisor Jenn Coggan (L), with the 2014 Suncayr team (L-R): Derek Jouppi, Andrew Martinko, Rachel Pautler, Peter Mucha and Chad Sweeting.