Partners

On March 6 MCEI was a guest at the Up2B Demoday and innoWerft annual event hosted this year by our partner in Walldorf. We were greeted by Dr. Thomas Lindner from innoWerft and the Mayor of Walldorf Christiane Staab. The event continued with an inspiring talk by Norbert Haug, former head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport, with his insights on innovation and entrepreneurship.

First up was the Up2B Demoday. In a full tent of spectators, eight startups were competing in the final pitch of Breakthrough 2019. The startups pitched in front of the audience and an expert jury of three. Capdevila ite aims to improve solar power generation. Comuny offers a secure digital identity. Foodchecker provides overview over grocery stock to filter for ingredients. Fuzzy Factory offers a decentralized platform for clinical data sharing. i2 (say: i square) is a platform to identify ingredients of dishes for restauranteurs. Pace Up Invest offers an intelligent financial advisor. Smart Forest is a tree tokenization platform to neutralize CO2 emissions. Stick4R is a marketing platform for content creators. Each pitch was followed by an Q and A from the jury where the startups cleared up remaining questions.

After the pitches the jury retired for counsel to decide on the winner of this year's Up2B cohort. During the following break all guests could experience the startup gallery where the startups were exhibiting their solutions.

After the break the innoWerft annual event started with a brief overview of the past year. Dr. Thomas Lindner, CEO of innoWerft, used the opportunity to give an update about the developments of the past year. As the innoWerft defines their successes as their startups’ successes, he mentioned two startups in particular due to to their recent developments: 100 Worte and Actinate. Both have been achiving outstanding results over the past year. Further successes included over 2.5 million Euro in overall investments for the startups and the first ever exit of an innoWerft portfolio startup. Next on stage was Arndt Upfold from the Wirtschafstministerium introducing the Start-Up BW Pre-Seed program as a form of investment. One of the participating startups in this investment program Volcanicblue shared their experiences live on stage. Nemrude Verzano from SAP followed and gave an introduction to Industry 4.0 from the perspective as an enabler for startups and its possibilities. In the following investor and startup talk BRC Solar and aucubo gave insights into their experiences. The round of talks was finnished by Daniel Zacharias who introduced his startup Sdui which provides an app for communication among administration, teachers, parents, and pupils in schools. He also gave insights into his experiences with the series A financing round. 

Before the evening networking with barbeque, the winner of this year's cohort of Up2B had to be found. Therefore, the jury came on stage and acknowledged the hard work the startups put into their development. The race was apparently quite close and the jury encouraged everybody to continue on their entrepreneruial journey and advance. Finally the winners were announced: Stick4R won the third place, i2 the second place, and Capdevila ite the first place. We congratulate the winners and are looking forward to upcoming cohort of Up2B.