Chris Liebold
Two founding teams from TU Ilmenau have convinced the jury of the Thuringian Regional Innovation Program, TRIP, and received one of the coveted places in this year's funding program.
Dr. Sherief Emam from NOVU AI received a full ticket for the TRIP Class 2021 and will be further developed in the coming months with workshops and coaching on business model development, strategy and financing. In addition, the founding team will receive 4,500 euros in equity-free start-up money for the next milestones and will be networked with other start-ups, industry and investor:ing both in Thuringia as well as nationally and internationally. NOVU AI is working with an international team to develop an AI-based software solution that will be used for early detection of breast and lung cancer. Dr. Sherief Emam and his team are currently funded by the EXIST-Gründerstipendium at TU Ilmenau.
The two students Philipp Tschakert and Patryck Tysler from HeyHerbert received an Associated Ticket and will also be supported in the coming months with coaching and workshops by the Foundation for Technology, Innovation and Research Thuringia (STIFT)supported. The HeyHerbert team is part of the Ilmkubator Class, the funding program for particularly promising start-up ideas at the TU Ilmenau. Their indoor gardening solution aims to make healthy eating and growing herbs in your own four walls even easier. Both projects are planning to found a company in 2022. TRIP is a program of the STIFT within the framework of the project ThEx innovativ. Since 1993, STIFT has been promoting science, research and technology along the entire educational and economic development chain. In individual cases, it invests as an early-stage and side investor in promising Thuringian start-ups.
With the Thuringian Regional Innovation Program, TRIP, start-ups in the Accelerator Program have been brought towards investment readiness since 2019. For this, selected teams receive intensive support over 6 months in the form of expertise, workshops, budget and networking with investors and companies. For particularly scalable projects, an additional 3 months of the Final TRIP phase with a focus on VC funding is possible. The final highlight of the program is a pitch at the Investor Days Thuringia. This year's focus is on the transformation of structures, processes and new ways of thinking. For the first time, the focus has been placed on the automotive and mobility industry, but other disruptive innovations are also being promoted.
Already last year, two spin-offs of the university, eCeramix GmbH and AI-UI GmbH, participated in the TRIP-Class. More information on this year's award winners can be found here.