German Accelerator – a program supported by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy – hosted its 15th flagship event “Celebrating Innovation” for the first time in Cologne last week. The German Accelerator teams from New York, Silicon Valley, and most recently Singapore united in the RheinEnergieSTADION to welcome the new participants to their program in front of an audience of 250 guests. Sally Menken, of German Accelerator Silicon Valley and host of the evening, reported on the startups’ experiences.
In addition to the location’s CEOs, Michael Meirer (Silicon Valley), Christian Busch (New York), and Claus J. Karthe (Singapore), alumni of the German Accelerator program also shared their experiences in U.S. “You have to establish a stable business in Germany because you’ll encounter a number of tornadoes over there,” Dr. Madjid Salimi, CEO, and co-founder of AMBOSS, advised the new startups. AMBOSS successfully accelerated their U.S. expansion with the German Accelerator team and mentors in New York from the end of 2017 to mid-2018. “Go to the U.S. with the spirit of a new startup. Don’t let your mind be held back in Germany. So hand over as much as possible to your colleagues. The program allows you to work operatively in the U.S. on day one.”
Johannes Emigholz, COO, and co-founder of SILEXICA, also brought along exciting insider knowledge – the Cologne-based software startup participated in the German Accelerator program in Silicon Valley in 2016. “In Europe, you wait three months for an appointment with a company,” reports Emigholz, “in Silicon Valley, a colleague’s neighbor played golf with the CTO of Intel – and we pitched to him the next day.” In July, SILEXICA also joined the German Accelerator program at the Singapore location in order to successfully expand the company into Southeast Asia.
Whether it’s the German Unicorn Celonis, which started in Silicon Valley in 2013 with German Accelerator, New York Alumni My Postcard, or N26: over 165 alumni companies have benefited from the advancement program, which was established in 2012 and provides access to more than 200 mentors and a comprehensive local network.
The new startups that will be starting with German Accelerator in New York and Silicon Valley in January – Acomodeo, Aklamio, Cognigy, CQSE, dc-square, fino, Humanitec, IDnow, InfluencerDB, Intrapore, Medici Living, Mimi Hearing, Usercentrics und YFood – hope to build on these successes.
“We already cover more than 120 countries and the majority of our bookings are international. So it was only a matter of time before we became international. German Accelerator should help us learn from the experiences of other startups in order to grow in the U.S. We hope the strong network will make us better known,” said Eric-Jan Krausch, CEO of Acomodeo, an online provider of furnished business apartments worldwide.
Benjamin Kremer, Co-CEO of the meal replacement drink startup YFood, founded in 2017, sees great potential for his young company: “The U.S. is the perfect market for our product – it is four times larger than the German market and customers are much more open to convenience products and innovations in general.”
List of the selected German Accelerator Tech participants
Acomodeo (Frankfurt): finds fully furnished apartments for people who move to a new location for longer periods of time for business or studies.
Aklamio (Berlin): is Europe’s largest recommendation platform.
Cognigy (Düsseldorf): offers a software platform with which companies can seamlessly integrate conversational AI into existing or new communication processes.
CQSE (Munich): Founded as a spin-off of the Technical University of Munich, the startup is responsible for controlling newly written software in companies with the central product Teamscale.
dc-square (Landshut): operates in the field of networked industry. The team works with the MQTT software protocol, which enables machines to communicate with each other.
fino (from Kassel): provides services all around consumers’ finances – from account analysis to construction financing.
Humanitec (Berlin): is building a platform with which companies can easily develop program code and applications.
IDnow ( Munich): offers an identity verification platform for the Now Economy.
InfluencerDB (Cologne): offers data and software that allows companies to carry on influencer marketing more successfully.
Intrapore (Essen): offers the use of state-of-the-art geotechnical methods for high-resolution site investigation, precise monitoring, and effective remediation of soil and groundwater pollution.
Medici Living (Berlin): develops and operates innovative living space and co-living concepts worldwide.
Mimi Hearing (Berlin): develops digital hearing tests for smartphones in order to individually adapt the playback of music and sounds to the results.
Usercentrics (Munich): helps companies manage the consents of their customers in a legally secure way with its “Consent Management Platform.”
YFood (Munich) sells a drink for Generation Y that replaces entire meals.
About German Accelerator
German Accelerator is a support program for German startups that aim to expand internationally. Established in 2012 in the Silicon Valley, the program expanded to New York in 2014. Life sciences companies have been supported in Cambridge / Boston since 2015. Since March 2018, the program supports German startups to enter the Southeast Asian markets from its site in Singapore. German Accelerator is funded by the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy as well as corporate partners. The program is free of charge for all participating companies.
For further information please visit: www.germanaccelerator.com
Press Contant German Accelerator Germany
Katharina Legge, Tel.: +49 175/4130077
Email: katharina.legge@germanaccelerator.com
Press Contact German Accelerator USA (New York)
Stephanie Korbely, Tel.: +1.929.382.0965
Email: stephanie@germanaccelerator.com