The life science startup Microbify from Regensburg won third place in the finals of BayStartUP's Northern Bavaria Business Plan Competition and, together with the top placed companies, secured prize money totaling 22,500 euros. The company accompanies natural gas storage operators on their way to a renewable future using its special microbiological expertise. Also nominated in the final was NOVOprint from Bayreuth with its technology for the production of artificial living tissue. BayStartUP, together with LfA Förderbank Bayern, selected the winning startups at an exclusive award event in Nuremberg.
The founders Dr. Georg Schmid and Linda Dengler of third-place Microbify GmbH specialize in high-pressure sampling and work with anaerobic microorganisms. The company spin-off from the Department of Microbiology and Archaea Center at the Regensburg University investigates natural gas reservoirs for their suitability for biological methane production and hydrogen storage and assists customers with microbial-induced corrosion that affects gas quality and infrastructure.
Also nominated in the final was NOVOprint from Bayreuth. The healthcare startup from the University of Bayreuth is working on a fast and cost-effective technology for the production of artificial living tissue, for example for artificial organs and other tissues with natural structure. The technology is based on advanced 3D printing and is needed in various fields, including surgery, the cosmetics industry and drug discovery in medicine, biotechnology and pharmacology to research new drugs.
More than 100 startup teams participated in the 2022 season of the competition. The aim of the program is to prepare them for approaching investors and entering the market with business planning know-how and extensive feedback on their plans. BayStartUP selected the winning startups together with LfA Förderbank Bayern at an exclusive award event in Nuremberg.
The winners of the Businessplan Wettbewerb Nordbayern of BayStartUPat a glance:
1st place: Web Inclusion GmbH from Würzburg.
Web Inclusion GmbH develops and distributes the software Eye-Able®, which is integrated on websites or can also be installed in the browser. The software is aimed at website operators who want to improve the usability and accessibility of their site in order to expand their target group and make a clear commitment to the topic of web inclusion.
2nd place: oculai GmbH from Nuremberg, Germany
oculai is a solution for camera-based data collection on construction sites. Using computer vision, data on progress, processes and deliveries is extracted from image material and made available to the site management in a WebApp. This way, the current status of the construction site is always in view and time-consuming documentation is automated.
The following startups were also nominated in the finals:
- accuras GmbH from Erlangen uses a software platform to provide building-relevant data such as movement, sensor, communication, time and object data on floor plans and orchestrates these for information, navigation and automation processes. The concept is intuitive and highly scalable as well as adaptable to the broad market (B2B & B2C).
- With uRyde, CONNECT Mobility GmbH from Erlangen uses intelligent algorithms to make the free capacities of existing vehicles visible and available to others in real time. Students and employees of participating uRyde partners can share trips across the board and thus reduce emissions, traffic, parking space and fuel costs. Public transport and company bus systems of corporations, such as adidas and Siemens, are also integrated.
- ROBOTOP GmbH, based in Erlangen, Germany, connects suppliers and users of robotic automation solutions with its vendor-neutral B2B SaaS platform through a browser-based multi-user extended reality planning environment. Labor-, time- and communication-intensive planning and project planning processes can thus be reduced to a few mouse clicks.
- YAXI GmbH from Neustadt an der Aisch revolutionizes Open Finance with trusted computing technology. The experienced team develops a fully automated, trusted bank account access. The secure service always delivers only desired data, gets by without harmful artifacts in the user journey and offers low-threshold access for all market participants.
"This year's submissions once again reflect the thematic as well as the regional diversity of the Bavarian start-up scene. The selection of the winning teams shows that even in volatile times, startups with solid, clearly monetizable business models are in demand - even more so if they have a quantifiable social or ecological benefit," says Dr. Carsten Rudolph, managing director of BayStartUP.
Since 1998, BayStartUP's Businessplan Wettbewerb Nordbayern has been the first startup competition in Germany to specifically target founders in the region so that they can successfully establish themselves on the market. Startups from Franconia and the Upper Palatinate have the chance to apply with their business concepts in three competition phases. This is not just about cash prizes for the winners. Through expert feedback, workshops and contacts to network partners, all participants benefit from the very beginning.