EIT Manufacturing: first regional BoostUp! final

The first BoostUp! regional final hosted by EIT Manufacturing's Co-Location Centre Central, Darmstadt (Germany), took place on September 23.

The hybrid event, organised amid pandemic restrictions, received very good feedback from the about 120 participants, and strongly contributed to further reinforcing the connections to the local ecosystem.

In addition to the awards ceremony, the event programme included an introduction from the Lord Mayor of Darmstadt, Jochen Partsch, and two keynote speakers. Christian Bacher, Bosch Startup Harbor, spoke under the headline “Corporate Incubation and Acceleration Programmes, driving Innovation Ecosystems”, whereas Alain Leloux, General Partner, Cottonwood Technology Fund, gave some advice on how to turn early stage investment ideas into Gazelles.

Our BoostUp! event was a fantastic opportunity to strengthen our ecosystem in Germany, the Benelux, Ireland and Poland. Together with our members, our activity partners as well as our four new network partners – DigiHub Südbaden, Provadis School of International Management and Technology, Smart Systems Hub and HUB31 – I am looking forward to further support innovative manufacturing in Europe.

Christian Bölling - Director of Co-Location Center Central

We saw companies with highly innovative solutions, great teams with entrepreneurial drive and business models that allow scaling up all over Europe. We will be proud to assist these companies with our Business Creation support services.

Wolfgang Kniejski - Senior Business Creation Manager at Co-Location Center Central

Seven European ventures you will hear more about

At the Co-Location Centre Central, all seven BoostUp! competition participants were awarded.

Read more about them here

CREATE Category for entrepreneurs for a new solution to develop for commercial use:

• 1^st place: Digital Production Technology
• 2^nd place: Kvassir

ACCELERATE Category for start-ups ready to expand:

• 1^st place: OndoSense GmbH
• 2^nd place: Oculavis GmbH
• 3^rd place: Visometry GmbH
• 3^rd place: AR-Experts GmbH

TRANSFORM Category for SMEs ready to transform their business:

• 1^st place: Orbis MES