The Norrsken Foundation is a non-profit foundation that supports entrepreneurs in solving the biggest global challenges such as poverty, hunger, mental health, environmental pollution, and climate change. It has launched several venture capital funds, manages an accelerator program, and operates co-working spaces. Norrsken was founded by Niklas Adalberth, one of the founders of the fintech company Klarna. Each year, the foundation honors the Norrsken Impact/100. the world's most promising impact startups.
This year, the majority of them – 42 companies – come from the USA. Second place goes to German startups, with a total of 15 on the list, three of them from Munich. Third place goes to the United Kingdom with 10 young companies. With startups from India, Kenya, Nigeria, Argentina, and Indonesia, the list also underscores its global appeal. It's notable that only one startup from China made it onto the list.
The Munich startups among the Norrsken Impact/100
Tozero is developing a scalable recycling plant for lithium-ion batteries. It will extract not only lithium but also other valuable materials such as nickel, cobalt, and graphite from discarded batteries. Tozero was founded in July 2022 by Sarah Fleischer and Ksenija Milicevic Neumann. In their work, the two founders collaborate closely with Prof. Bernd Friedrich, who, as head of the Institute for Metallurgical Process Engineering and Metal Recycling at RWTH Aachen University, is considered a pioneer in battery recycling research. Tozero recently inaugurated a pilot plant for battery recycling, and the startup closed its last financing round in September 2022, raising €3.5 million.
Planet A Foods was founded in 2021 by Sara and Maximilian Marquart. The siblings are developing new food products that they can produce independently of very limited resources such as cocoa, palm oil, or land. The startup initially focused on the production of cocoa-free chocolate and developed Nocoa. This cocoa substitute is made from oats that are first crushed (fermented) by yeast and then roasted. This gives the product the typical chocolate flavors and also preserves the texture of chocolate. Planet A Foods already operates its first production facility in Pilsen, Czech Republic, which produces up to 750 kilograms of cocoa-free chocolate mass per hour. Munich Startup has already tasted an ice cream based on Nocoa. The startup is financed with a total of around 5.6 million euros, which it raised in two seed financing rounds.
Battery recycling, new food and optimized wind power
Kite powerKitekraft, spun off from the Technical University of Munich in 2019, develops flying wind turbines. The technology consists of a multicopter drone with wings connected to a ground station by a cable. This solution enables wind energy generation using less material than conventional wind turbines, which lowers costs, reduces logistical effort, and is also less visible. Kitekraft's initial products are 100kW systems for farmers, communities, islands, and microgrids. Kitekraft plans to scale these up to 500kW and later to multi-MW systems for grid-level power generation. In December 2022, Kitekraft secured €1.5 million ($1.6 million) for further development.
