GründerGeist: Startup Port founders honored

At the 17th edition of the GründerGeist start-up competition at the Körberforum, the start-ups supported by the Startup Port performed excellently, with mo:re from the TU Hamburg being particularly successful, winning first place.   Last week, the final of the GründerGeist 2023 start-up competition took place at the Körberforum, directly on the Norderelbe not far from Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie concert hall. The Körber Foundation has recently stepped up its commitment to start-ups and invited guests to its “living room” for the award ceremony for the first time this year: around 200 guests attended the event, listened to interesting keynotes on start-up experiences and saw excellent start-ups, most of which are supported by the Startup Port. Afterwards, there was plenty of room for networking between business, investors and startups.

mo:re from the TU Hamburg won first prize

The most successful startup of the evening was the mo:re team, which impressed the jury with its vision of being able to produce medicines tailored to individual needs in the future without the need for animal testing. They are talking about mini-organs, 400 of which can be grown on a simple plate. The work is to be done by a robot. The problem in the pharmaceutical industry is that animal testing costs a lot of money, takes a long time and does not deliver good results, says founder Lukas Gaats. One alternative to animal testing is “cultivated mini-organs”. These simulate the organs for the tests. mo:re has developed a production line to manufacture these mini-organs. The next step for the team is to build up production capacity in Hamburg. “The potential is not only enormous economically, but also socially,” said laudator Katharina Froh about mo:re. The startup received the first prize of 10,000 euros and eleven consulting hours for its groundbreaking idea, which is already a reality in some respects. The founders were based at the Startup Port in Harburger Schloßstraße for a long time and are supported by the Startup Port @TUHH, whose Executive Director was delighted with the recognition from GründerGeist: “It’s great when startups like mo:re or KONVOI, which we were able to accompany and support for part of their journey, are recognized for their innovations. They are passionate about their ideas and simply do a very good job!” says Christian Salzmann.

Many Startup Port founders among the finalists

In addition to mo:re, the seven finalists selected by an expert jury from almost 50 applications included numerous other start-ups supported by Startup Port: For example, the jury awarded third place, endowed with 2,500 euros and eight consulting hours, to Recyclabs from the University of Hamburg. Recyclabs has developed a process for recycling PET that can be used for bottles or clothing. In the next step, the start-up wants to build the first large-scale plant for this. CarbonStack, another finalist from the University of Hamburg, has developed a platform that simulates the growth of forests. The startup KONVOI, also from the TU Hamburg, secures trucks with its alarm system. Our former colleague Leonie Wilken was also among the finalists with her relationship app myndwerk.       Further information on the GründerGeist: Around 40 founders submitted their business plans to the competition organized by the Hamburg Junior Chamber of Commerce (WJ). In the first step, the submitted business plans are evaluated by experienced practitioners from the ranks of the Hamburg Junior Chamber and the top 7 applicants are filtered out. The top 7 are then invited to a separate, high-caliber pitch training session and have the opportunity to present themselves to the jury one week later. The jury consists of experts from the Hamburg startup scene. The award ceremony is the highlight of the competition. The top three winners will receive cash and non-cash prizes with a total value of over 20,000 euros.

GründerGeist