The sensor startup Blickfeld wins the “Start me up!” start-up competition against 1,200 other participants. The LiDAR pioneer wins the competition's main prize of 100,000 euros. The audience voted Social Bee.
Blickfeld, a sensor technology provider, has been awarded the €100,000 top prize in the "Start me up!" start-up competition by the business magazine Bilanz. The Munich-based startup beat out a total of 1,200 applicants, ten of which advanced to the finals. Founded in 2017, the company offers a special type of sensor, namely 3D LiDAR products. (Editor's note: LiDAR stands for "light detection and ranging").
These sensors are used in particular for autonomous vehicles and IoT applications. This has convinced the company not only its customers, but also investors and multipliers like a successful Financing round as well as various other Awards showed.
Blickfeld impressed at the “Start me up!” start-up competition
The young company was also able to convince the jury. The jury chairman Andreas von Bechtolsheim (also a well-known serial entrepreneur and Silicon Valley investor), explains the decision of the ten-member jury for Blickfeld as follows:
"LiDAR sensors make driving safer because they detect hazards quickly and accurately. What makes the Blickfeld sensors special is their small size: They can be integrated directly into headlights and rearview mirrors, yet are highly advanced in terms of range, image resolution, and field of view."
Blickfeld-CEO Mathias Müller finds:
“The mobility of the future is a topic that concerns many people and ultimately affects us all.”
Müller sees the Founders’ Prize award as confirmation and adds:
“We see our vision of making tomorrow’s mobility more efficient and, above all, safer with our sensors confirmed.”
Social-Bee convinced the audience
Second place went to Berlin-based Superseven, the Munich-based startup Social Bee took third place. The audience was impressed by the Munich-based social enterprise's approach to integrating refugees into the German labor market through temporary employment.
Other Munich-based startups also made it to the finals, including the IoT company Hawa Dawa, Isar Aerospace Technologies with their rocket engine idea and Kiutra, which develops cooling systems for quantum computers, among other things.
The business magazine Bilanz has been honoring business ideas and innovations with the "Start me up!" Founder Award since 2015. This year's winners were chosen at the TOA tech festival in Berlin.
