About us
BRAVE is courageous.
We dare to do things differently, forge new pathways and find solutions for scientific challenges.
BRAVE is enthusiastic.
We help our customers master their particle challenges and are excited to see what they will discover with OF2i®.
BRAVE is dedicated.
Each day we want to be better than the day before, keep improving our products and deepening our knowledge.
BRAVE is innovative.
We love to think outside the box. We want to create something extraordinary and share it with the world.
Our mission:
Advancing human well-being and igniting curiosity by providing deeper insights into particle processes to drive innovation and ensure a healthier, safer world.
Brave people make the world go round
At BRAVE Analytics we feel the innate pull towards discoveries and love to look at things from a completely new angle whenever possible. Being “brave” is far more than our business philosophy or just a part of our brand name, it is our fuel. Each day it helps us to grow beyond ourselves, to do better than yesterday and to find new ways to work that people typically do not consider. This courage unites us in our quest for groundbreaking discoveries and boosts our team spirit. And it will be our driving force in the future as well.
As a brave company, standing still does not suit us very well. When a problem is solved or a challenge is mastered, we are already looking to tackle the next hurdle. We believe that there is a solution for every problem, it just needs to be discovered by innovative people. As a team we do not shy away from a challenge, instead we move ahead to embrace problems with hope and excitement. When we make our next discovery, we just hope we don’t forget to grab a towel before sprinting across the Med Uni campus screaming Eureka!.
EVEN THE BRAVEST WON'T SUCCEED ALONE.
A BRAVE league of legends
Christian Hill
CEO | CTO
Christian is one of the founders of BRAVE Analytics, along with Gerhard Prossliner. He is a biophysicist and CEO and CTO of the company.
Gerhard Prossliner
COO | CFO
Gerhard is one of the founders of BRAVE Analytics, along with Christian Hill. He is a medical engineer and COO and CFO of the company.
Doris Auer
Lab & Application
Doris is a registered pharmacist. As the application specialist and laboratory technician she is responsible for measuring samples, evaluating results and creating measuring reports. She also works on the accounts.
Michael Longhino
Software & IT
Michael is the senior software engineer and a full-stack developer. He develops the framework for process control, firmware, GUI and interface design for the H.A.N.S. and R.U.T.H. software.
Magdaline Okumu-Hartwig
Administration & Accounting
Maggy runs the office, implements the new inventory system and monitors incoming goods from suppliers. She also organizes business trips, leads human resources and works on the accounts.
Alexander Leljak
Design & Engineering
Alexander designs custom optomechanical, mechanical and fluidic parts, creates the complete 3-dimensional models of all BRAVE Analytics products including constructional drawings and manufacturing interface.
Sarah Knights
Marketing & Communications
Sarah takes care of our press relations and social media presence. She also creates content for the webpage, print products and other communication channels.
Thomas Gruber
Testing and Mechatronics
Karin Griessmaier
Application & Algorithms
Karin is a biomedical engineer who is working on extending the OF2i® method for other applications.
Michael Schnur
Fluidics, Mechanics & QM
Michael is an industrial and mechanical engineer with profound know-how in meso- and microfluidics, dilution systems, sensors and testing procedures. He designed, implemented and verified the dilution system for BRAVE B-Continuous.
Magdalena Schneidhofer
Business Development & Events
Lena plans and organizes events, produces films and takes care of our distributors and business expansion.
Christian Neuper
Physics & Optical Engineering
Christian is working on his PhD thesis and for BRAVE Analytics. He is focused on the development, calibration and technical setup of dynamic Raman measurements in the nanometer range as a modular extension of OF2i®.
Raphael Hauer
Physics & Modeling
Raphael is working at BRAVE Analytics and on his PhD. He is extending the OF2i® method for use on ultra-low concentrated particles with a focus on applications in the pharmaceutical industry.
The story of the BRAVE
How it all started
Sometimes you must turn the state of the art on its head. This is what happened in 2013, when Christian Hill, a researcher at the Medical University of Graz, Austria, was considering the potential usage of optical forces, spin and the angular momentum of photons for particle characterization. He began to imagine a setup which could remove the constraints of Brownian motion so he could get a much better look at his particles and nanoparticles. What he did next was the first step on the road to a new particle characterization method.
One great idea & a team of clever people
Over the next five years, Christian and a small team of colleagues worked on a method of particle characterization which goes beyond Brownian motion. This became the OF2i® principle, a method which combines photonic and microfluidic forces to actively set thousands of particles in motion simultaneously. The minimal photonic forces are sufficient to deflect and (de)accelerate small particles from their fluidic-induced motion, independent of their overlying Brownian motion.
An ultramicroscope setup determines the actively altered particle trajectories and translates this information into characterization data. This provides the number-based size, size distributions and particle numbers (concentration) with single-particle sensitivity and a therefore delivers results which are statistically representative of the overall particle population. The measurements are orders of magnitude faster than the Brownian motion processes used in DLS or NTA.
“Aha” moments at the university & industrial interest
The joyful news spread quickly. Talking about the new method at conferences and joining the EU-funded NanoPAT project brought the OF2i method to the attention of a wider audience. In particular great interest was shown by a pharmaceutical concern looking for particle size measurement directly in their high-pressure homogenization processes.
Besides working on this online, in-process solution, the BRAVE team registered the excitement shown by researchers and colleagues at the Medical University of Graz when they heard about OF2i®. These researchers brought samples to test on the “beta” instrument and had their first “Aha” moments. A second BRAVE goal was formulated: to package the OF2i® method in a benchtop laboratory device for research and development purposes.
Product launch & visionary ideas
Time flies when you’re developing measuring instruments and suddenly the first device is ready to be “out there” measuring particle size distribution and concentration in laboratories near and far. The laboratory device BRAVE B-Curious was launched in March 2023, with the additional Raman analysis module following the end of 2024. The online sensor BRAVE B-Continuous for particle measurement during production is also available for purchase.
And the development never stops. Since then, the team of 15 brave pioneers has been working on further modules: for large particle detection, small particle monitoring and for the hyphenation with existing techniques such as SEC and ICP-ToF-MS. Our journey motivates us and has taught us many things. Now we want to see how our innovations will revolutionize the way people analyze their particles and nanoparticles, how our customers will push the boundaries of our products and which groundbreaking discoveries they will make.
to be continued …
Discover the benefits of OF2i®.
WORKING DAY AND NIGHT TO BRING OF2i® to you.
Impressions from BRAVE HQ
You want to join the BRAVE team?
We are always happy to meet people with very specific professional experience in the fields of quality management, physics, pharmaceutical production, fluidics, optomechanics, micromechanics, mechatronics, mechanical engineering, IT, computer vision, business administration and finance.
Financing
Program: NanoPAT Process Analytical Technologies for Industrial Nanoparticle Production
Program: aws Seed – Financing & support of deep tech companies from the prototype stage to the market
