Munich Startup: What does your startup do? What problem are you solving?
Frank Wallrapp, CEO and Co-Founder: We develop customized enzyme solutions that enable industrial biomass side streams to be efficiently converted into sustainable, non-food-based sugars. This solves the problem that large quantities of valuable biomass are currently underutilized or not used at all for material purposes, while food-based raw materials are being consumed in the biotechnology and chemical industries.
Waste-based and other second-generation raw materials only have the chance to be a real game changer when sustainability and higher profits go hand in hand, as they do here.
Munich Startup: But that already exists!
Frank Wallrapp: Standard enzymes are often nonspecific and economically suboptimal for the customer’s particular biomass. We develop customer-specific enzyme cocktails with a clear focus on industrial scalability and profitability. Additionally, we offer licensing models and tech transfer for on-site production models, which further increases profitability and sustainability.
Harnessing the potential of biomass
Munich Startup: What’s your founding story?
Frank Wallrapp: We both come from industrial enzyme development and worked hand in hand at our previous employer for many years. We saw how much potential lies in biomass and that this potential is often not realized economically. This led to the vision of finally making 2G bioconversion profitable and industry-ready, and doing so faster, more agile, and more customer-specific than is often possible at large corporations.
Munich Startup: What have been your biggest challenges so far?
Frank Wallrapp: The combination of technology development, lab setup, and simultaneous market validation. It’s particularly challenging to think about industrial reality from the start, both technically and economically. But we place a very strong focus on this.
Twogee Biotech was founded in 2024 by Frank Wallrapp and Helge Jochens. The two have known each other for over twelve years from their time together at Clariant Group and bring many years of experience in industrial enzyme development.
The vision: global leader in biomass utilization
Munich Startup: Where do you want to be in one year, and where in five years?
Frank Wallrapp: In one year: several running industrial projects with clear scaling perspective.
In five years: established technology partner for profitable 2G biomass utilization in Europe and beyond.
Munich Startup: How have you experienced Munich as a startup location so far?
Frank Wallrapp: Extremely supportive. Munich and the surrounding area have an extremely strong network, a good investor landscape, excellent research, and short distances between industry and innovation.
Munich Startup: Hidden champion or shooting star?
Frank Wallrapp: Long-term hidden champion, with the pace of a shooting star.
