Standout startups from Germany at Bits & Pretzels 2017: One-minute videos
Europe’s start-up scene is thriving. From London and Berlin to Paris and Vienna, the region’s capitals have each made their case in recent years as the top spot in Europe for entrepreneurs. But it isn’t only big cities that are making their mark. Munich, home to many leading high-tech and industrial companies, has quickly grown into southern Germany’s biggest startup hub, thanks in part to startup events like Bits & Pretzels.
This year, Rakuten returned as a main sponsor of the festival and the Rakuten Today team was on the ground to witness the amazing growth of the Munich startup scene up close. We gave five standout startups one minute each to explain their disruptive business ideas:
Medineering
Twitter @medineeringGmbH
Maximilian Krinninger – Managing Director
Medineering, headquartered in Munich, develops, manufactures and markets an application-specific robotic portfolio to make the benefits of robotic assistance available to a broad number of patients. The portfolio consists of the Medineering Positioning Arm as well as compact, application-specific robots that can assist surgeons in complex anatomical regions. Dr. Maximilian Krinninger and Dr. Stephan Nowatschin founded Medineering in June 2014. The the young and international team has grown rapidly and now consists of highly specialized robotic engineers, marketing experts and regulatory specialists.
MYLIKE
Twitter @myLike_app
Uwe Hering – Founder and CEO
myLike is a global platform that allows private users and businesses to discover, save, personalize, organize and exchange recommendations for great places on a map within their circle of friends or customers, in a unified and simple format. myLike allows each user to decide who can see their content and which sources they want to tap into to receive relevant tips. It can be used as a personal or social travel planner and log-book or to host a professional travel guide. myLike can work as a standalone app or be integrated into third party systems, communication channels or interactive maps on websites.
RECUP
Twitter @recup2go
Florian Pachaly – Founder & CEO
RECUP is a convenient deposit system for take-away coffee cups with the mission to substitute disposable cups with reusable ones. Contrary to common believe, disposable take-away coffee cups are barely recyclable, since they are coated with plastic on the inside. In Germany, RECUP offers a simple solution to this dramatic wasting of resources: coffee lovers can rent their RECUP cup for 1€, enjoy their hot beverage on the go and return the used cup to any of RECUP’s 450 partner stores along the way.
IOSIS
Laura Schwarz – CEO
IOSIS is a fully-funded venture of the Covus Group, which develops SaaS solutions for content publishers and e-commerce websites. Their solution, ioPUSH, sends out push notifications in real time on desktop and mobile devices no matter where the user is. The push notifications the website sends out can be personalized and branded, can include pictures and gifs and are shareable on social media. No developer skills are required to integrate the SaaS software into a website or e-shop. Unblockable by ad-blockers and with view rates as high as 98% and CTR of up to 28%, push notifications are far more effective than most email-based newsletters or display ads.
JUST SPICES
Twitter @JustSpices
Florian Falk – Founder & CEO
From a small cellar room business to a company with more than 90 employees, Just Spices has gone through a very successful development since its foundation in 2012 in Dusseldorf. Ever since then, Just Spices has committed itself to simultaneously providing a wide range of seasonings and currently offers more than 140 spice blends on the German market. Just Spices emotionalizes the spice market with modern branding, storytelling and creative spice mixtures. Just Spices pursues one clear vision: to convince people of the thrilling, passionate story every spice tells in its own way.
