The "Digital Start-up of the Year 2024" competition is aimed at all young companies that have successfully participated in a start-up initiative of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK). From recipients of the EXIST start-up grant to startups participating in the High-Tech Gründerfonds and finalists of the German Accelerator, a wide variety of startups compete for the jury's favor. Three prizes of €50,000, €30,000, and €20,000 will be awarded.
There's also a €10,000 Audience Award. In a public online vote, everyone can choose their personal favorites from the nominated video submissions. Only eligible applicants for the "Digital Start-up of the Year 2024" award are eligible to participate. Voting is open until midnight on September 24, 2024.
Two Munich startups in the race for the Audience Award
Among the seven nominees are two startups from Munich:
Exomatter, a DLR spinoff, is working on a platform for material properties. This platform will enable development departments to find suitable materials for specific applications in the future. Data from computer simulations and AI ensure that suitable and sustainable suggestions for each application can be derived without complex test series. Exomatter's AI-supported database contains more than 1.5 million materials and their properties.
Pina Earth Since 2021, Pina Earth has been developing certified climate protection projects with the goal of creating future-proof forests throughout Germany. To this end, the startup helps forest owners optimize the CO2 storage process in their forests, convert these forests to be climate-friendly, and generate and trade CO2 certificates in the process. Pina Earth's forest conversion projects already cover 2,200 hectares in Germany. More than 120,000 tons of additional CO2 storage potential have already been created.
The other candidates for the Audience Award are Aiperia from Würzburg, Automatum Data from Schlaitdorf in Baden-Württemberg, Elona Health from Düsseldorf, Logistikbude from Dortmund and Suena from Hamburg. The video contributions of all participating startups can be seen here. The award ceremony will take place on October 7, 2024, as part of the “Days of Digital Technologies” in Berlin.
