Heilbronn, 30. October 2024 - The third edition of HeilbronnSlush'D set new standards in 2024 and established itself as a catalyst for a dynamic startup ecosystem in Heilbronn and beyond. This year's event, hosted by Campus Founders on October 24, 2024, attracted an impressive number of founders, investors and innovators. With 1,000 tickets sold, the event was sold out days in advance, underscoring the growing importance of the region's innovation center. The program was significantly expanded and included over 40 speakers on 2 stages, over 50 startup pitches, over 30 interactive workshops on various specialist topics and 16 circles, i.e. discussion rounds in small groups with the speakers. In addition, there were over 70 startups and companies that presented themselves in the exhibition area.
The motto at the heart of the festival was: “One Shared Vision”. This central guiding principle illustrates the conviction of how important an active and collaborative community is for the creation and promotion of extraordinary ideas and successful startups.
Oliver Hanisch, CEO der Campus Founders, emphasized the relevance of this collaboration in his opening speech. “Heilbronn Slush'D is more than just a start-up event. A vibrant ecosystem has emerged here in Heilbronn that is now recognized far beyond Germany's borders.The theme of this year's event, “ONE SHARED VISION”, expresses our collective ambition to shape the future through intensive collaboration. And in a world that is constantly changing, it is important that we come together, promote exchange and collaboration and responsibly drive progress. This goes far beyond Heilbronn. We are here to drive the startup agenda not only locally, but also at state, national and even European level.”
The main stage program included two exclusive announcements:
Together with Adrian Thoma, CEO of NXTGN GmbH, Oliver Hanisch, CEO of Campus Founders, presented the ambitious project. The federal government is expanding the EXIST funding to include the “Startup Factories Lighthouse Competition”. The aim is to establish supra-regional and internationally more visible startup factories as lighthouses and thus increase the number and quality of knowledge-based spin-offs. As a group from Baden-Württemberg, this newly formed association is applying to be a startup factory under the name NXTGN. The aim is to make a major contribution to the transformation of the economy by 2030. This includes: 500 tech spin-offs, 10,000 new jobs and 1 billion in venture capital.
Oliver Hanisch, CEO der Campus Founders, was delighted at the announcement on stage: "The collaboration between Campus Founders and NXTGN is another milestone for our ecosystem. This will further strengthen Heilbronn as a location for innovation."
More information is available at https://join-nxtgn.com/leuchtturmwettbewerb/
Together with Alexander Ilic, Co-Founder & Executive Director of the ETH AI Center, Johannes Schnabel, Director Programs at Campus Founders, announced the start of the program. AI-Launchpad.eu is an accelerator program with a centralized application for AI startups from the best European AI centers. The program offers startups access to mentoring, resources and funding opportunities to enable them to develop successfully in the fast-growing AI sector. The program emphasized the collaboration with Rise Europe, the ELLIS network and ELIAS - three networks dedicated to promoting cutting-edge AI research and entrepreneurship in Europe. These strategic partnerships expand the opportunities for participants by connecting them with industry leaders and research institutions
Heilbronn Slush'D 2024 offered exclusive insights into startup stories, investment processes and the potential of the ecosystem. 1,000 participants, including startups, companies, investors and more than 40 speakers, exchanged ideas in Heilbronn about the latest technologies, trends and business models - from the future of work, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, green tech, cybersecurity, quantum computing and space travel.
The outstanding speakers included:
Prof. Christian Busch, renowned author of "Connect the Dots" enthused the attentive audience about the concept of serendipity, the active design of chance: “Serendipity is a process, not just blind luck: We can learn how to connect the dots. Be open to the unplanned and find the meaning in the unexpected moments.” The subsequent book signing created a long line and after 2 hours the author had distributed all 600 copies that were on site to grateful guests and had had countless conversations.
Magnus Grimeland, founder and CEO of Antler, the world's most active seed stage investor, shared his experiences from more than 1,300 startup investments. He is convinced that now is the best time to start a startup. He looks for the following qualities in founders: “A great founder needs 4 things: Drive, Spike, Grit and Integrity.”
Tillman Schulz, entrepreneur, investor and juror at "Die Höhle der Löwen", spoke about his personal experiences in the cooperation between medium-sized companies and startups and encouraged medium-sized companies to invest even more in startups. He also stated that "entrepreneurship" should be part of the school curriculum.
Lisa Gradow, serial founder, investor and CEO of Fides, talked about her biography as a founder, which began during her school days in Heilbronn and led her to an investment by the renowned Silicon Valley VC Sequoia Capital. Now based in Munich, she thought back to the beginnings and stated: "If there had been something like Campus Founders and Heilbronn Slush'D back then, I might have stayed here. You don't need skyscrapers to think big!"
Dr. Larissa Leitner, co-founder and managing director of Empion, gave important insights into her founding story and the challenges she encountered, especially in the area of recruiting. She emphasized: "There has to be a culture fit with employers" in order to find and retain the best workers.
In addition to the program, the Heilbronn Slush'D also offered many surprising moments for the participants. In one of the tents there was a fully equipped barbershop where guests could have their hair and beards styled for free. The offer was well used and both chairs were occupied until the end of the event. The guests also had a lot of fun at the "Fluffy Founders" mini petting zoo. Here a small group of black dwarf sheep romped around and enjoyed being petted and a little food. This image was shared a lot, especially on social media. There was also an engagement at Heilbronn Slush'D 2024: A couple who met at the first edition of the event two years ago used the opportunity and setting for a memorable proposal.
More than 50 pitches took place at Heilbronn Slush'D 2024 in just one afternoon. A top-class jury consisting of industry experts, successful entrepreneurs and investors assessed the pitch, business model, market potential and overall impact of the startup to determine the winners.
Linity offers a social learning platform for STEM subjects with the aim of offering high-quality STEM education that is accessible regardless of geographical, economic or social barriers. Through the use of technology and innovative teaching methods, job-qualifying skills and lifelong learning are inspired. The award is endowed with 5,000 euros and was presented by Campus Founders.
The AICU research tools were developed to make statistics and data science accessible, efficient and effective for researchers. AICU simplifies the entire research process, from data analysis to publication-ready presentations, and saves researchers valuable time.The award is endowed with 5,000 euros and was supported by the Association of German Women Entrepreneurs (Verband deutscher Unternehmerinnnen - VdU)
VCG.AI's Value Chain Generator intelligently brings together industrial companies (which generate waste), technology providers (which convert waste into new raw materials) and buyers (who buy raw materials) to convert waste into raw materials and ensure a circular material flow. The deep-tech platform can revolutionize the way companies operate a circular economy. The team helps companies to exchange waste materials on a large scale, quickly, profitably and sustainably.
With an innovative robot cell, Cellios enables cable manufacturers to automate previously monotonous and manual assembly activities for the first time. The robot cell can be quickly adapted to customer needs thanks to standardized hardware. Customers with small and medium quantities can therefore stay in the high-wage European location and mitigate their labor shortages.
The heart of nanoshape GmbH's business idea is an antibacterial surface technology for medical implants. A specially developed process can be used to create special nanostructures on the surface of, for example, dental implants or artificial joints, which mean that bacteria do not adhere well and sometimes even die on contact. This gives patients greater safety during implantation, while implant manufacturers benefit from a new type of technology that is not yet available on the market.
Perian offers “The world's first sky computing program”. Sky computing is the latest development in cloud computing and offers a uniform, interoperable and flexible layer above conventional cloud platforms. PERIAN offers access to all supported cloud providers, such as Google Cloud or AW, with just one interface and just one account. PERIAN promises customers that they can effortlessly run any GPU workload in the most cost-effective way, so that they can focus less on infrastructure and more on programming.
The award is worth 10,000 euros and is supported by D11Z Ventures.
Tabularis.AI offers an innovative solution for the secure handling of sensitive data. Using an advanced generative AI model, the platform creates hyper-realistic synthetic data sets that are based on real data and yet meet high standards for data protection and data security. This enables teams and organizations to share insights and findings without compromising data security. Whether for analyzing customer data, preparing development data sets or creating training data for AI applications: The platform's multimodal functions enable comprehensive processing of complex data sets and also take special and extreme cases into account.
The award includes a potential investment of 100,000 euros in the form of a convertible loan from Campus Founders Ventures GmbH. This is accompanied by intensive mentoring.
Images: Heilbronn Slush'D 2024 Image Gallery
Heilbronn Slush'D is the startup festival in Heilbronn that has been aimed specifically at founders, startups, medium-sized companies and investors since 2022. The focus of Heilbronn Slush'D is on technological and social issues, especially cooperation between founders and companies. In addition to an exciting stage program, startup pitches, exhibition areas and workshops, participants can find out about the latest trends and developments, exchange ideas and network. Thanks to the Rise Europe Initiative, Campus Founders, the organizers of Heilbronn Slush'D, are closely networked with leading innovation centers such as Oxford, Zurich and Paris, bringing an international audience to Heilbronn.
More information: heilbronnslushd.com
Campus Founders is the startup and co-innovation hub in Heilbronn. The programs combine practical experience, advanced methods, financial start-up support, a mentor pool and an international network. The programs are tailored to all phases of the entrepreneurial journey: They range from initial idea generation to validation of problem-solution fit, achieving product-market fit, and sustainable scaling of the business model. Campus Founders thus enables early-stage startups to make rapid progress and drive their (international) growth. As a platform, Campus Founders brings students, founders, investors and companies together, promoting collaboration and co-innovation. A lively community with over 1,000 members regularly exchanges ideas in various event and networking formats. Campus Founders also supports female founders through special exchange and mentoring offers. Through membership in the RISE Europe network of the leading 20 European startup ecosystems from 14 countries, Campus Founders builds a bridge to international markets and experts. For the third time, Campus Founders is organizing the Heilbronn Slush'D startup festival, which attracts over 1,000 curated participants from the European innovation and startup ecosystem.
More information: campusfounders.de
