Munich Startup: What does your startup do? What problem are you solving?
Exomatter: Finding new materials, for example for batteries in electric cars or efficient solar cells on rooftops, is very time-consuming. Usually many candidates are tested in the laboratory until months or years later you have a good result. We want to change that. To do this, we use data from computer simulations to find better and more sustainable materials faster.
Munich Startup: But that already exists!
Exomatter: Yes, but there are huge barriers to entry for current solutions. To simulate materials, you need quantum chemical calculations, and most companies in our target group don’t have the right specialists for that, because it wouldn’t even be worth building that competence themselves. We make the whole process as simple as possible. Our customers only need to tell us what requirements they have for the material, and our platform then provides the appropriate data.
Munich Startup: What’s your founding story?
Exomatter: We three are a very complementary team with science and business backgrounds. Josua and Friedemann knew each other from their doctorates at the German Aerospace Center, and Barbara was actively sought out and found by the two. Two of us have already worked at B2B software startups and one has a strong sustainability background and lots of involvement with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
From Berkeley via Helmholtz-Enterprise to UnternehmerTUM
The first ideas and technology go back to Josua, who was supposed to find materials in his doctorate for the use of solar energy. He thought it should be easier than testing all material candidates laboriously in the lab for years. So he teamed up with experts in California at the National Lab in Berkeley and worked there for three months. In the end, the very first prototype of a materials database platform was created, with which he found new materials for his doctoral thesis in a very short time. They are still the most promising candidates for the application today. In 2020, Josua picked up the idea again and in 2021 developed our first product, later also with support from the Helmholtz-Enterprise spin-off program at DLR. In 2022 we then founded our company and are currently financing ourselves through customer projects and grants, and we’ve made it into UnternehmerTUM programs. First we were at Xpreneurs, since the beginning of the year we’ve been at Techfounders.
Munich Startup: What have been your biggest challenges so far?
Exomatter: One major challenge was translating this idea from science into a product that provides real added value to customers in companies. So the transition from the academic world to business. We’ve managed that quite well in the meantime by conducting a lot of conversations and learning a lot in pilot projects.
Another important point is team building. As mentioned, we are a very complementary team and bring different characters together. That makes us stronger and more diverse, but especially in the early days definitely led to conflicts that we were able to resolve constructively.
Exomatter wants to enable end-to-end management of the R&D process
Munich Startup: Where do you want to be in one year, where in five years?
Exomatter: In a year, we will have implemented some frequently requested features on our platform. The most important point is that customers can retrieve data on our platform largely without our support. This is a huge advantage for customers because they don’t have to commission us for each project individually, but instead pay an annual fee and can work on multiple topics in parallel or sequentially during that time. And if it does get complicated, we’re there in the background. The types of data available there will also be more diverse, especially on sustainability and material availability.
We want to grow as a company at our locations in Munich and Cologne and become an exciting technology company in the region. In five years, if all goes well, we will have established ourselves as a notable player in Europe and North America in our market segment of materials informatics. Our platform will then enable end-to-end management of the R&D process, integration with other enterprise software platforms, and a broad community including academic users. We also have some exciting ideas about the further use of AI algorithms, which we cannot reveal at this point.
“What could be better is companies’ openness”
Munich Startup: How have you experienced Munich as a startup location so far?
Exomatter: Really interesting. There’s a network of founders, investors, and mentors here that doesn’t exist anywhere else in Germany in the B2B sector. Especially helpful was the support from UnternehmerTUM and their incubator Xpreneurs, which we participated in. The three of us have never founded a company before, so it’s extremely important to build a network and learn from others. Coworking spaces like Werk1 and Munich Urban Colab were also very helpful in finding a physical home despite high remote work and being able to exchange ideas in person.
What could be better is the openness of companies in the region to new digital approaches. There’s a willingness in many places to drive things forward, but often you get lost in corporate structures and established processes that are hard to break through.
It’s also difficult to find employees in the IT field who are located here and looking for a new job. We could hire people remotely from all over the world immediately, but we think the mix of personal collaboration and proximity with flexible remote work is very important. If you know anyone, please get in touch with us.
Munich Startup: Hidden champion or shooting star?
Exomatter: Right now still more of a hidden champion, because we’re still a small team and have financed ourselves without external capital so far. But we’re currently in talks about our first funding round, which gives us at least great potential to be a shooting star. It’s a very exciting time right now that’s a lot of fun and you can be excited to see where this journey takes us.
