Munich Startup: What does Volulink do? What problem are you solving?
Moritz Hall, Co-Founder Volulink: Volulink aims to mobilize one million hours of digital expertise from universities and companies for non-profit projects. IT students and corporate mentors are matched together to suitable projects via a platform. This makes social organizations future-proof through digitalization while simultaneously connecting companies with IT talent.
Building digital bridges between universities, business, and NGOs
Munich Startup: But this already exists, doesn’t it?
Moritz Hall: Of course, there are already student practical projects and hackathons. Nevertheless, the need among social organizations and associations is huge – especially when it comes to digitalization. By additionally connecting students with matching experts from companies, we create synergies that provide significant added value for all parties involved. Additionally, through our approach, we’ve discovered that grant management is an enormous challenge for many non-governmental organizations (NGOs). For this reason, we’ve developed our own software solution, which is already in use at several organizations.
From student idea to funded startup
Munich Startup: What’s your founding story?
Moritz Hall: We founded VoluLink alongside our business informatics studies, inspired by the Pledge1% Initiative, which Moritz discovered during a semester abroad in Australia. We were initially uncertain about taking the leap into startup founding. But fortunately, we received great support, including through the 5-Euro Business Competition and funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
Munich Startup: What have been your biggest challenges so far?
Moritz Hall: The main challenge of our endeavor is building a platform approach with three parties. To implement successful projects, we depend on long-term partnerships and the participation of non-profit organizations, universities, and companies. Furthermore, we want to achieve successful go-to-market with our software.
Early successes and concrete impact
Munich Startup: How is business going?
Moritz Hall: Through Volulink, we’ve already mobilized over 3,000 hours of digital expertise from universities and companies for non-profit projects. For example, a team of students and an Amazon mentor developed an AI chatbot for the German Wildlife Conservation Association that supports the preparation of student workshops. That’s exactly what drives us every day!
Munich Startup: How have you experienced Munich as a startup location so far?
Moritz Hall: Fantastic! We find incredibly valuable support here through mentoring, accelerator and incubator programs like the Munich Impact Incubator and our partner network.
Munich Startup: Outsource or do it yourself?
Moritz Hall: It depends – we leverage the benefits of both approaches.
