10 teams from the second Schwedt Startup Challenge are moving into the
concept phase

With today’s launch of the second Schwedt Startup Challenge, 10 teams from Germany and Poland will be working over the coming months to develop pilot projects for the production of sustainable materials at the site. The three best concepts will have the opportunity to implement their pilot project in Schwedt. They will be supported in this by the Challenge’s cooperation partners: PCK Raffinerie GmbH, LEIPA Group GmbH, ENERTRAG SE and VERBIO SE.

The Schwedt Startup Challenge combines technological development with industrial restructuring in Schwedt: “What makes the Schwedt Startup Challenge special is that the teams here become a direct part of the transformation process at the site,” explains Sascha Lademann, project coordinator at the Schwedt Startup Lab: “We want to hear from the teams how their technology can help shape industrial change or even create new value-added potential.”

The participating start-ups will initially receive a research and development contract worth up to €20,000. They will be supported by the Challenge’s industry partners, who will provide infrastructure, application scenarios and mentoring. For the three most promising concepts, the contract can be extended by up to €300,000 to implement a pilot application at the Schwedt site.

“The fact that we in the Uckermark are consistently generating supra-regional and international interest in the start-up scene shows just how much future potential there is in rural areas too,” said First Deputy and Deputy District Administrator Frank Bretsch. “As a district, we are supporting this development by creating industry-related infrastructure such as the DemoHub in the immediate vicinity of PCK, in order to offer precisely such pilot projects the best possible conditions for development,” Frank Bretsch continued.

For Schwedt’s mayor, Annekathrin Hoppe, the Start-up Challenges are also a highlight in the structural transformation of the town: “Through the Challenges, we can see that the transformation in Schwedt is not about deindustrialisation, but rather that our local conditions provide excellent starting points for future technologies in the circular economy, green chemistry or the bioeconomy,” Hoppe is certain. “I am all the more delighted that, through the Challenges, we are enabling young companies, industry and academia to work together here on sustainable solutions for the transformation in Schwedt.”

Sustainable materials at the heart of the second Startup Challenge

The challenge centres on pilot projects that will enable, for example, basic chemicals, fibres, residual materials, polymers, composites or textiles to be produced in future using renewable or secondary raw materials and renewable energy. As part of the challenge, the technologies are set to move beyond the laboratory scale and into a real-world development environment.

The following teams were selected by an independent jury of experts:

• Beneficial Design Institute GmbH
• Bin-E Sp. zoo.
• Biowerkz GmbH
• EveryCarbon UG
• LIGARO GmbH iG
• Nanolope GmbH
• Papair GmbH
• Radical Dot GmbH
• Revoltech GmbH
• Spark e-Fuels

Further information:
https://startuplabor-schwedt.de/innovationen/startup-challenges/startup-challenge-2/ 

Funding note:
The Startup Labor Schwedt is a project of the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (HNEE), Leipa Group GmbH and PCK Raffinerie GmbH, and is funded by the EXIST funding programme of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE) pursuant to a resolution of the German Bundestag, as well as by the Ministry of Science, Research and Culture of the State of Brandenburg.