Second Accelerator Programme at Frankfurt School

Six start-up teams comprising of Frankfurt School students and alumni pitched their companies in the Audimax on Monday, 4 September. This “Demo Day” event was the finale and conclusion of the Summer Accelerator Programme, the second of its kind held by Frankfurt School’s Entrepreneurship Centre. Throughout the month of June the founders stress-tested their ideas with mentors, participated in expert workshops on topics such as virtual stock options, and received pitch training. At the Demo Day, each start-up delivered their pitch in front of investors, angels, students and the panel of Venture Capital jury members to compete for prizes totaling 50,000 EUR.

Fundthis.xyz is a platform for creators to invite their network to invest in creative projects such as film production, book publishing, and music albums. The creative industries account for 5.5% of Europe’s GDP but lack easy access to financing and rely only on their own funds, grants or donations. With a successful proof-of-concept stage and over 100 projects ready for onboarding, the minimum viable product (MVP) is set for a test launch. Going forward Fundthis.xyz aims to enhance the MVP, onboard projects, and obtain a marketplace operating license.

Cognate introduces a revolutionary approach to language learning by hyper-personalising content to users' professions, industries, and interests. This is all augmented by AI-powered tutors and chat friends. The MVP was launched late last year, and the team has meticulously redesigned the product to emphasise user engagement, the cornerstone of success in language acquisition.
 

Vestiums is a FashionTech app providing its users with 3D scans of their clothing as they wear them. The scans will be leveraged in different ways such as a digital closet, an avatar to visualise outfits and eventually a second-hand marketplace. The closet app market has already generated several million downloads and online second-hand shopping is growing exponentially, but both lack one thing: the third dimension. Vestium has already built a prototype of the scan technology and UI. Now they are seeking to build an MVP and bring it to the market.

Green Elephant Biotech (GEB) aims to help researchers and the biopharmaceutical industry work more sustainably. The team pioneered the development and distribution of novel, technologically patented products made of plant-based polymer polylactic acid (PLA). With these products, GEB redefines how pharmaceutical companies produce adherent cells and address manufacturing challenges to cure diseases. GEB has developed and launched their first product called CellScrew.

The runner-up of the pitch night DatafabriQ brings the first dataspace connectors-as-a-service solution that enables companies to create, manage, and connect digital twins within their entire supply chain. Supply chains are now more and more connected to comply with regulations and new market risks. DatafabriQ's provisioned digital twins may take the form of a product, processes, or even production lines and communicate with other twins in a unified language, making it possible to track product carbon footprint, create to-the-dot quality alerts, enhance traceability and recycling, and many other use cases.

The top honor prize of the night goes to MEDICEO. The company delivers instant, tailored decision support directly at the point of care, empowering medical professionals to access critical information within seconds. By saving research and documentation time by up to 60 minutes daily, doctors, nurses, and medical students can amplify patient care, providing unparalleled, personalised treatments. While already accessible in the B2C market, the company is strategically advancing by seamlessly integrating its software into hospital systems, unlocking a new era of medical excellence.

Frankfurt School alumna Franziska Reh delivered the keynote speech at the Demo Day and spoke about her company, Uncap. Uncap’s mission is to make early-stage funding accessible to every good founder in Africa. To do so, they provide revenue-based funding to small, early-stage businesses that can grow into medium-sized companies over time. Through their proprietary software the investment process is largely automated, highly de-biased and scalable. So far, they have provided funding to 86 companies across Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda.

Ram Shoham, Director of the Entrepreneurship Centre at the Frankfurt School, has developed and implemented the Accelerator Programme. He emphasises that entrepreneurs and young founders are competitors (e.g. for investments) but should support each other, especially at Frankfurt School.