Currently running at Presize: The Munich startup was recently able to six-figure pre-seed financing And now it can also Munich Business Plan Competition (MBPW) 2019.
In addition to Presize, M-Bee and Orbem also made it onto the winners’ podium. The three finalists will receive prize money totaling €30,000. The Munich Business Plan Competition is organized by Baystartup.
The sustainable business models are impressive
“Using smart technologies, the winners and nominees develop convincing solutions for current challenges in a wide range of industries,”
says Dr. Carsten Rudolph, Managing Director of BaystartupIt was extremely difficult for the jury to choose three winners. Rudolph believes the sustainable business models of the nominated startups are impressive:
“They form the basis for a rapid, successful market entry and initial sales – factors that are essential, especially for convincing investors.”
All participating startups – not just the winners – receive extensive written feedback on their business models.
One of the sponsors of the competition is the LfA Förderbank Bayern. Hans Peter Göttler, Deputy Chairman of the Board of LfA, said at the awards ceremony:
"The innovative ideas, talent, and courage of this year's competition winners are impressive! I'm very excited to see the next steps of the founding teams."
After all, many startups from past competitions are now successful companies. The LfA also sees itself as a partner to the founders, Göttler continues:
"For a successful start, appropriate financing is also necessary. The LfA supports founders with attractive subsidized loans, risk-taking, and venture capital."
Prezise in first place, M-Bee and Orbem follow
1st place: Precise
Prezise is the first company to accurately measure people using only a video recorded with a mobile phone. Previous scanning methods are either inaccurate or often require multiple cameras in a separate room. With the Presize concept, the customer simply spins around in front of their smartphone camera, wearing normal clothing, and uploads the short video to the system.
The software then creates a 3D model based on the video and calculates the customer's body measurements. It uses computer vision and deep learning to do this. This way, online shoppers receive optimal size recommendations for each product and ultimately send fewer items back to the retailer. Returns are a significant cost factor for retailers. And of course, fewer returns also protect the environment, the founders explained at the awards ceremony.
2nd place: M-Bee
Battery storage systems are key to the energy transition, especially for the use of renewable energies. Electricity generated from wind or solar energy must be stored – and stored as stably and securely as possible. Common battery storage systems today consist of a central inverter and a problematic high-voltage battery. Battery management is complex. If one component fails, the entire system becomes unstable. The founders compare the system to a string of lights on a Christmas tree, which goes out when one light stops working.
M-Bee is therefore working on a modular B2B approach that overcomes this challenge and is developing a novel technology for stationary and mobile battery storage systems without high voltage. The core of the technology is to replace the central inverters for high-voltage battery packs and instead equip them with the Munich-based startup's power boards. This increases the system's reliability, simplifies work processes, provides greater energy efficiency and more usable energy capacity, and also improves the handling of varying battery parameters.
3rd place: Orbem
Is there another word for chick shredding that doesn't sound so horrific? No, stated Fabian Brunner of Baystartup at the awards ceremony. Yet the mass shredding of male chicks has been a source of controversial discussions about the ethics of poultry farming for years. The Munich-based startup Orbem now wants to use intelligent imaging technology—an "egg MRI," as the founders describe it—to enable the classification of eggs according to fertilization and sex.
This is intended to solve two problems facing the poultry industry: the wastage of more than 9 billion unfertilized eggs annually and the unnecessary culling of 7 billion male day-old chicks. The innovative scanning process examines eggs without contact and automatically sorts them according to their fertility status or the sex of the chick. This would enable poultry farmers to market billions of previously unusable eggs for human consumption, avoid chick culling, and, last but not least, save energy, costs, and waste.
The remaining nominees
The other nominated startups were mostly also from Munich. Here is the list of nominees:
- Dermagnostix offers a fully automated point-of-care platform for the molecular diagnostics of skin diseases.
- Ebenbuild ensures optimal ventilation of lung patients using patient-specific computer models.
- Erium optimizes manufacturing and decision-making processes through the intelligent combination of machine learning with the knowledge of the respective process experts using the HALerium software platform.
- Repulping Technology from Aichach-Friedberg is developing an environmentally friendly, physical process for recycling fibers from waste paper and composite materials.
