With its pitch, 8pm Social convinced both the expert jury and the audience of the Munich Startup Award 2026. The Munich startup prevailed in the final against Pulsetrain and Jessy Works. The award was presented at the Munich Startup Festival at Backstage Munich.
With 8pm Social, the startup of the same name develops a social network that focuses on personal relationships rather than continuous content consumption. The feed is updated only once daily at 8 pm and aims to encourage users to engage more consciously with social media.
The award, established since 2016, introduced a new feature this year: For the first time, in addition to the evaluation of an expert jury – consisting of Darius Göttert, Dirk Brettschneider, Dr. Ulrike Tagscherer, and Susanna Bertschi – public voting also factored into the overall result. After the pitches, visitors could vote for their favorite.
Award brings visibility
With the victory, 8pm Social receives not only the prize money but also additional attention within the Munich startup ecosystem. When asked what the prize money should be used for, Saskia Teufel and co-founder Paul Funke are not entirely in agreement:
“Pay salaries,”
says Funke.
“Save,”
adds Finance Chief Teufel.
The Munich Startup Award has been an important part of the Munich startup scene for 10 years. Previous winners were companies such as Unitelabs, Inveox, Cleverciti, Catchys, Hawa Dawa, Pylot, Pixel Robotics, Deepdrive, and 2NA Fish. The award honors outstanding ideas and achievements and underscores the innovative strength of the Munich startup scene.
