A packed house at the Chamber of Skilled Crafts for Munich and Upper Bavaria: In 2025, founders and craftspeople once again met at "Startup Meets Crafts" to exchange ideas, inspire, and network. Since 2016, the event has brought both worlds together – with great success. The event, organized by the Chamber of Skilled Crafts for Munich and Upper Bavaria and Munich Startup, once again bridged the gap between traditional crafts and technological innovation.
Georg Räß from the Chamber of Crafts and Saskia Doll from Munich Startup welcomed the guests. In her keynote speech on "New Space & Crafts," Élise Verdière from the spacetech startup DeltaVision and Kersten Stöbe from Messtec Power Converterhow space technology and craftsmanship come together. Together, they develop components for hydrogen mobility and space applications. DeltaVision builds intelligent, cryogenic fluid management systems and is working on a "gas station in space." Messtec supplies the precise components for this vision.
From AI to construction robotics: Startups present future solutions
In the subsequent startup pitches, six young companies each had three minutes to present their idea for the craft industry. Lars Kornhoff started with Cambrion: The startup offers an agentic AI system that automates document processing and integrates easily into existing workflows via API. Armin Zoike from Complemental AI introduced a proactively learning AI agent for knowledge management that is designed to link data and make it more accessible.
Henrik Havel from Amrax demonstrated how the Metaroom software creates precise 3D CAD models from a simple iPhone scan. Sitegeist, winner of the “Munich Startup Special Prize” 2025, impressed with modular construction robots that are intended to relieve the burden on skilled workers and increase safety on construction sites. Smart Inventory, presented by Jannis Böning, showed an intelligent warehouse assistant that automatically documents goods movements. And with SooMore A portal was presented that digitally connects tradespeople and private individuals – from transparent brokerage to appointment booking.
Networking with Bavarian delicacies
During the subsequent networking session, founders and craftspeople were able to deepen their discussions. The exhibiting startups were also joined by Smartaxxess, which supports business start-ups with its platform, which covers topics such as financing, insurance and consulting digitally and centrally.
Regional delicacies provided the culinary accompaniment. Guests could choose between popcorn made in Upper Bavaria by Ampertaler Popcorn, fresh sourdough bread and pastries from the Bread studio, specialties of the organic certified natural butcher Steakschmiede Kreuth and various of the Munich Brew Mafia craft beers.
As was demonstrated once again at “Startup Meets Crafts” 2025: The encounter between crafts and startups not only provides good conversations in a pleasant atmosphere, but also fresh ideas and perspectives – and in the best case, new partnerships.
