Deepeye Medical secured the title with an innovative diagnostic solution to prevent blindness in the final round of Startup Champs 2023. The cities of Munich, Cologne, Berlin and Hamburg each selected three finalists in a preliminary round, who competed against each other in the final round in Munich on June 22. Participants pitched their business ideas to a high-caliber expert jury. The jury also determined the four regional winners alongside the national winner. From the Cologne region, the startup Dpv prevailed with its innovative mini-ECG. Fimo Health and its app for tracking chronic diseases won the regional decision for Cologne. The cloud-based patient data systems and IoT hardware from UniWearables impressed among the Berlin participants.
The winning startups can look forward to free tickets and an appearance at Slush, Europe’s largest startup event, as well as many other regional prizes. Deepeye Medical receives additional bonuses as Startup Champ 2023, such as personal coaching, pitch training and participation in the exclusive Topic Day Health of Insurlab Germany. Already before the final, all finalists had the opportunity to present themselves at the joint Startup Champs booth at the Bits & Pretzels Healthtech.
Better insights with Deepeye Medical
Deepeye Medical has developed a decision support algorithm for ophthalmologists to help prevent blindness from treatable eye diseases. This allows doctors to offer individual therapy to their patients who suffer from, for example, the widespread age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
Manuel Opitz, one of the founders and managing director of Deepeye Medical, comments on the victory:
“Startup Champs was a complete success for us. It was impressive that the four largest startup hotspots in Germany gathered in Munich over these days. We already knew some of the faces from the press, and the direct exchange was an added benefit for us. We are delighted that Deepeye Medical emerged as Germany’s winner against such strong competition.”
Giving founders a stage
Startup Champs is a pitch competition where young companies from across Germany can apply with their product. To this end, the startup hubs Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne and Munich have joined forces. Berlin Partner, Hamburg Invest, Cologne Business, Munich Startup and Werk1 have been organizing Startup Champs since 2020. After the first two competitions were held as online events due to corona, the final in Munich in 2023 is the second live event following last year’s event in Hamburg. Each year, the competition has a different focus theme; in 2023, everything revolves around Digital Health. With this joint event format, the four cities want to make the importance of startups and technological progress understandable and visible.
