The ten winning teams from phase 1 of the Munich Business Plan Competition 2021 have been selected. This is the 25th year that the competition has awarded prizes to promising business ideas from southern Bavaria.
With innovative startup solutions and business concepts from the health industry and mobility sectors, the Munich Business Plan Competition started its 25th anniversary year. The award ceremony took place as part of a large online event. With the Munich Business Plan Competition, BayStartUP supports founding teams with market-oriented expert feedback and an extensive training programme in building up their company.
138 founding teams submitted their business concepts. The submissions in this year's first competition phase are characterised by a high diversity of technological and digital applications. From digital assistants in mechanical engineering to AI-based software for security analyses, the founding teams in the top 10 are developing solutions for the areas of digitalisation and automation. The life sciences sector is particularly well represented. Five of the ten award winners have a clear focus on life sciences. The founding teams are, for example working on improved therapies for multi-resistant infections or have a healthy working environment for employees in mind.
These are the winning teams
DeepScenario
DeepScenario creates a new base for automated driving through an intelligent analysis of aerial image data. The company's technology relies on artificial intelligence and allows the efficient, highly automated creation of traffic scenarios. This makes it possible to train, validate and scale algorithms for self-driving cars in a realistic environment even before they are used on the road. In doing so, DeepScenario relies on a novel method that enables highly accurate recording of these scenarios.
Dymium
Each year, 400,000 patients are treated endoscopically for kidney stones in Germany only. 50% of patients require follow-up surgery as residues in the kidney grow into new stones. Dymium technology is able to magnetise kidney stones with the help of a biocompatible substance, allowing them to be magnetically extracted without leaving any residue. In contrast to conventional methods, we facilitate the extraction for the surgeon through magnetic attraction forces, increase the speed of the surgery and avoid follow-up operations for patients.
emocean GmbH
The startup emocean offers a solution for Industrial IoT applications with its runtime platform indigo. The platform is based on the paradigms of Industry 4.0 and combines real-time capable machine communication with consistent semantics. indigo enables shorter product cycles, higher yields and cost reductions through predictive process optimisation by using modern methods in the "smart factory". Expensive cloud-based AI services can take place locally in the factory. Higher effectiveness leads to cost reductions for the user.
HyLOG (IFEC GmbH)
HyLOG enables a new type of dynamic room disinfection through the intelligent combination of ultrasonic cold fogging with a low-dose HyLOG mixture. For the first time, the entire room air as well as all surfaces can be disinfected simultaneously with only one device during normal room use. At the same time, recontamination is minimised by permanent operation. One can therefore assume a significantly reduced incidence of infection. The company's patented technology is flexible, retrofittable, very efficient, sustainable and has other positive effects.
Invitris
Invitris aims to solve the biggest problem in global healthcare in the coming decades: antibiotic-resistant infections. To this end, Invitris is developing personalised therapies with bacteriophages (a type of virus) that eliminate pathogens in a highly specific manner. Invitris has the world's first proprietary platform technology to produce any bacteriophage safely and in high concentrations. In this way, Invitris can apply completely new and more effective therapeutic mechanisms of action in a highly scalable, parallelised and cost-effective manner.
Knowron
Knowron is developing a digital personal assistant for plant and mechanical engineering. In industry, the status quo for information transfer is still the several 100-page manual. Knowron processes and analyses text-based information sources using algorithms from speech processing so that they can be accessed directly using natural language. This not only simplifies access to information, but also reduces the first-level support volume at the manufacturer.
MinQi
MinQi is the digital platform for mental and physical well-being in the workplace with sessions and trainings for the stressful everyday life of employees and (remote) teams. Due to the short but very effective exercise format, the sessions also fit into a very busy schedule. The exercises take only 3-8 minutes. The effectiveness has already been confirmed by a study conducted by the University of Munich (LMU).
Modelwise UG
modelwise is the first company to develop a mathematically complete solution for accelerated and improved safety assessment – paitron. Manufacturing companies benefit from significantly reduced development time through seamless integration into the engineer's workflow and tool chain. With overlooked design flaws causing recalls and, in the worst cases, endangering people and the environment, paitron gives engineers instant feedback on the safety of system designs.
Opsyon
The vision of the spin-off project Opsyon is to make cancer therapies more efficient while reducing side effects. Opsyon's multi-functional antibodies directly target cancer cells as well as the "don't-eat me" immune checkpoint and use the entire spectrum of the immune system to specifically and permanently eliminate cancer cells. With these novel therapies, Opsyon offers patients with acute myeloid leukaemia or pancreatic cancer, among others, the possibility of a longer survival with a high quality of life for the first time.
simercator
simercator is developing the first business-to-business online marketplace for simulation models and is aimed specifically at technology companies. It enables different industries – from mechatronics to energy – to exchange ready-to-use digital original components for product development. The simercator software standardises workflows and offers technologies to protect the models. This reduces costs, creates more security and helps supplier industries in particular to trade simulation models as a new digital portfolio across company and industry boundaries.
25 years of the Munich Business Plan Competition
For 25 years now, the Munich Business Plan Competition has been a permanent fixture in the startup scene. It started as a pilot project in 1996 and was one of the first two competitions of its kind in Germany. It is aimed at innovative founders who want to prepare their business idea for market entry. To this end, BayStartUP works with more than 350 volunteer jurors from all over Bavaria and teaches participants the central criteria in business planning in an accompanying workshop programme. For many investors, a good placing in the competition is therefore a reliable proof of quality and is synonymous with well thought-out, forward-looking business models. Successful former participants include companies such as Fazua, Magazino, Testbirds or Toposens.
Munich Business Plan Competition – Phase 2 underway
Startups can register and submit their business plans for phase 2 in the Munich Business Plan Competition on the BayStartUP website until 16 March. In addition to participants from the first competition phase, newcomers are also welcome – they have the same chances as everyone else. Five winners will win a total of 9,000 euros in prize money. In addition, every single participant will again receive feedback from the expert jury. The focus of the second competition phase is on marketing and sales strategy.