Starting-up vs. being a Startup™ 

We recently atten­ded the  Fede­ral Minis­try of Eco­no­mic and Cli­mate Action´s inau­gu­ral Startup Sum­mit in Ber­lin, and we were genui­nely impres­sed and moti­va­ted by the coor­di­na­ted efforts to fur­ther sti­mu­late the pro­li­fe­ra­tion and growth of start­ups in Ger­many. The announ­ced initia­ti­ves, such as the WIN-Initia­tive through its com­pre­hen­sive package of mea­su­res to sup­port the con­di­ti­ons neces­sary for inno­va­tion and growth capi­tal, will make a meaningful posi­tive impact in the Ger­man startup eco­sys­tem. We were also impres­sed by the coope­ra­tion across various fede­ral minis­tries and poli­ti­cal par­ties, with active par­ti­ci­pa­tion from the Chan­cellor, the Minis­ter of Eco­nomy and Cli­mate Action, and the Minis­ter of Finance along with the heads of many of Germany´s lar­gest corporations.

We did, howe­ver, notice that among the many atten­dees, start­ups them­sel­ves were not well repre­sen­ted. It is our view that in order to achieve the best out­co­mes from the ini­ti­tia­ti­ves, it is impe­ra­tive that all par­ti­ci­pants in the eco­sys­tem under­stand start­ups as being uni­que young com­pa­nies that are start­ing some­thing up, not as an object that is a goal unto its­elf, or a check­box on a govern­ment goal track­ing sheet. Start­ups should be and must remain the pri­mary and key actors in the eco­sys­tem, achie­ving importance through their own accom­plish­ments while being sup­ported by other stakeholders.

The invest­ment com­mu­nity, which includes natio­nal and regio­nal govern­ments, should aim to ensure that inno­va­tive com­pa­nies which are making meaningful breakth­roughs and addres­sing important pro­blems are able to secure the fun­ding they need to fur­ther their pro­gress. It should not work the other way around where a fun­ding amount or num­ber is set, and the invest­ment com­mu­nity tries to create start­ups and fund them hea­vily to meet the pro­grams´ goals – that would be the tail wag­ging the dog, and would only create pro­blems and increase the risk of gene­ra­ting losses.

In a time when Start­ups are cele­bra­ted more than ever, the foun­ders them­sel­ves must also prac­tice awa­re­ness and self-con­trol in order to avoid sli­ping into the trap of fee­ling suc­cessful merely because they are a ‘Startup™’. Some tell­tale signs of this dan­ger occur­ring are defi­ning trac­tion as recei­ving posi­tive feed­back from poten­tial future cus­to­mers, or mista­king social media acti­vity for busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment. In its most extreme ins­tances it can some­ti­mes feel like start­ups are spen­ding more time being a ‘Startup™’ than actually going about the busi­ness of start­ing some­thing up.

It is under­stan­da­ble that under the immense pres­sure to suc­ceed with a new idea and how chal­len­ging it can be to make meaningful pro­gress in the mar­ket, com­pa­nies some­ti­mes find ersatz goals to cele­brate. As long as this cele­bra­tion remains in the realm of moti­vat­ing the team to keep dri­ving toward the real goals it has healthy aspects. Howe­ver, once this cele­bra­tion cros­ses the line of defi­ning suc­cess in ways that are not meaningful to the objec­tive, it is a sign that a com­pany has lost its com­pass and is ena­mo­u­red with its mere exis­tence and not with impactful progress.

We are for­t­u­nate to be inves­t­ing in Thü­rin­gen, where foun­ders usually come from a tech­ni­cal back­ground, have deve­lo­ped meaningful inno­va­tions and are pas­sio­nate about brin­ging their idea to the world. In our expe­ri­ence, foun­ders of tech-based com­pa­nies are less vul­nerable to the siren calls of the many mar­ket par­ti­ci­pants who have no skin in the game and who want to pro­mote them­sel­ves by asso­cia­ting with start­ups. Thü­rin­gen tech foun­ders main­tain focus on their goals and stay in the busi­ness of actually start­ing some­thing up –  and we fully sup­port that.

Your bm|t Team

Welcome to the Family

Thü­rin­gen and Sach­sen based TEDIRO Health­care Robo­tics is doing pio­nee­ring work to launch the first mobile robot for various the­ra­peu­tic appli­ca­ti­ons that com­plies with the new EU Medi­cal Device Regu­la­tion (MDR). The company´s THERY robot will help medi­cal and the­ra­peu­tic staff to improve pati­ent mobi­lity regard­less of staff pre­sence by accom­pany­ing and coa­ching pati­ents during gait trai­ning, as an initial appli­ca­tion. bm|t and TGFS Tech­no­lo­gie­grün­der­fonds Sach­sen led a con­sor­tium inclu­ding a busi­ness angel and the medium-sized robo­tics manu­fac­tu­rer MetraL­abs GmbH Neue Tech­no­lo­gien und Sys­teme for this seven-figure seed invest­ment round. TEDIRO will use the funds from the finan­cing round to soon launch the robot as a medi­cal pro­duct on the mar­ket and carry out addi­tio­nal tests in mul­ti­ple clinics.

For more infor­ma­tion about this exci­ting invest­ment please read the fol­lo­wing press release: https://www.bm‑t.de/en/2024-en/tgfs-and-bmt-invest-a-seven-figure-sum-in-tediro-healthcare-robotics-gmbh/

BIONCaRT´s vision is to offer all pati­ents an imme­diate and cost-effec­tive stem cell the­ra­peu­tic for car­ti­lage rege­ne­ra­tion, initi­ally in the knee and then also in other joints and for the tre­at­ment of osteo­ar­thri­tis. bm|t, TGFS Tech­no­lo­gie­grün­der­fonds Sach­sen, pri­vate inves­tors and the foun­der inves­ted a seven-figure sum in BION­CaRT GmbH (form­erly Bio­Planta GmbH) in this seed finan­cing round. With the capi­tal the com­pany will con­duct a phase I/IIa cli­ni­cal trial for the mar­ket appr­oval of its human stem cell the­ra­peu­tic for the tre­at­ment of focal car­ti­lage damage to the knee joint.

For more details about this pro­mi­sing new invest­ment please read the fol­lo­wing press release: https://www.bm‑t.de/en/2024-en/bioplanta-becomes-bioncart-bmt-tgfs-private-investors-and-founders-jointly-invest-a-seven-figure-sum-to-conduct-a-clinical-trial/

More than 30% of work-rela­ted acci­dents involve the hand. Digity´s inno­va­tive first pro­duct, ARTUS, is a pas­sive exo­ske­le­ton that pro­tects the fin­gers from acci­dents and exces­sive strain on the skin and fin­ger joints. This seven-figure seed invest­ment was co-led by bm‑t and NBank Capi­tal Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft, and was joi­ned by Life Sci­ence Val­ley Ven­tures Manage­ment GmbH, Mit­tel­stän­di­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft Nie­der­sach­sen (MBG) mbH, busi­ness angel Chris­toph Höynck and 4SeedImpact Busi­ness Angel GmbH. ARTUS is alre­ady on the mar­ket and the funds will be used to fur­ther increase sales and pro­duc­tion capacities.

For more details about this exci­ting new invest­ment please read the fol­lo­wing press release: https://www.bm‑t.de/en/2024-en/digity-secures-e1-4-million-in-seed-funding-for-artus-prevention-exoskeleton/

Follow-on Investments

With its inno­va­tive quan­tum encryp­tion, Quan­tum Optics Jena (QOJ) enables tap-proof com­mu­ni­ca­tion for com­pa­nies and insti­tu­ti­ons of all sizes. The QOJ team is pio­nee­ring advance­ments in cyber­se­cu­rity by harnes­sing quan­tum optics – a tech­no­logy that uses ent­an­gled pairs of pho­tons (light par­tic­les) to trans­mit infor­ma­tion with com­plete secu­rity. QOJ is the world’s only com­mer­cial pro­vi­der of multi-party quan­tum key dis­tri­bu­tion sys­tems, where mul­ti­ple users can secu­rely com­mu­ni­cate at the same time using the gene­ra­ted quan­tum keys.

For more infor­ma­tion about this breakth­rough invest­ment round please read the fol­lo­wing press release: https://www.bm‑t.de/en/2024-en/quantum-optics-jena-secures-e8-5-million-in-series-a-funding-to-revolutionize-secure-communications/

Small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses (SMEs), which make up 99.4 per­cent of the Ger­man eco­nomy, are par­ti­cu­larly vul­nerable to cyber­at­tacks as they often lack the neces­sary resour­ces and exper­tise to pro­tect them­sel­ves against incre­asingly com­plex thre­ats. Jena-based Engin­sight an expe­ri­en­ced Ger­man pro­vi­der of an all-in-one cyber­se­cu­rity plat­form for SMEs, has a solu­tion that is deve­lo­ped 100% in Ger­many and is spe­ci­fi­cally tail­o­red to the needs of Ger­man SMEs. This breakth­rough invest­ment round was led by UVC Part­ners and included par­ti­ci­pa­tion from many of Enginsight´s key inves­tors. The invest­ment will allow Engin­sight to con­ti­nue and increase its tor­rid growth.

For more details about this breakth­rough invest­ment round please read the fol­lo­wing press release: https://www.bm‑t.de/en/2024-en/enginsight-strengthens-smes-against-cyber-attacks-with-e6-million/

Valuable information for our Investee Partners & other companies in Thüringen

Attrac­tive for start-ups and growth com­pa­nies: With the help of the FTI-Thü­rin­gen PERSONEN Direc­tive, small and medium-sized com­pa­nies are sup­ported in recrui­ting highly qua­li­fied per­son­nel. Com­pa­nies can receive a wage cost sub­s­idy of up to 48,000 euros for two years for per­ma­nent recruit­ment. The grant can be applied for from the Thü­rin­ger Auf­bau­bank. Fur­ther infor­ma­tion can be found here (in German):

https://www.aufbaubank.de/Foerderprogramme/FTI-Thueringen-PERSONEN