The founders Nadine and Marcel Stiller presented their innovative hair tie to the investors Volume. Thanks to its special construction, the product is designed to create a voluminous ponytail even with thin hair. The founder, who herself suffers from hair loss, Nadine Stiller said on the TV show:
"Regular hair ties can cause breakage and hair pull-out, and I wanted to avoid that in my situation."
She then looked for existing alternatives. Her husband and co-founder Marcel Stiller said:
"But when we couldn't find what we were looking for, we started tinkering with different materials ourselves."
After almost two years of development, Volummi was born. The product is manufactured in Germany, is 100 percent recyclable, and a tree is planted for each Volummi sold. The founding couple offered €135,000 for 15 percent of the company's shares.
The TV investors put three offers on the table: Ralf Dümmel offered the requested €135,000 for 15 percent of the company. After Judith Williams and Tillman Schulz submitted an offer of €200,000 for 20 percent, thus assuming a higher company valuation, Dümmel followed suit with a similar offer. Finally, Nils Glagau offered the originally requested €135,000 for 15 percent of the company. The founding couple then decided to accept the offer from Williams and Schulz.
Article brings Maschmeyer on board
Articly also presented itself to the investor round yesterday. Startup offers newspaper articles online for listening. The founder Wolf Weimer said he has a passion for quality journalism, for well-told stories, reports and background reports, but does not like to read:
"My entire generation feels the same way I do. We're crazy about audio content. We listen on the way to work, while cooking, or exercising—simply everywhere. What's rare are audio offerings from newspapers and magazines. The really good content is mostly only available in print. Listening to it? No chance."
This is how the idea for his company was born. Weimer explained:
"We select the best articles from renowned newspapers such as Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Zeit, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Welt, Forbes, and many more and have them narrated by professional speakers. We then make them available centrally in the Articly app – in the best audiobook quality."
For the further development of the app and marketing measures, the founder demanded 70,000 euros from investors and offered 20 percent of the company shares.
Carsten Maschmeyer and Janna Ensthaler made the founder corresponding offers: 70,000 euros for 20 percent of the company. Weimer then chose Maschmeyer as the new investor.
