1 Oct 2024
From physics and computer science to medicine and sport: excellent research gives rise to a wide variety of innovative start-up ideas at the LMU Innovation Incubator.
Two years after the foundation of the LMU Innovation Incubator at the LMU Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center (IEC), the program for early-phase start-ups is celebrating an important milestone: More than 2.5 million euros in public funding has been awarded to teams from the incubator. The program was developed to promote innovations from LMU in conjunction with the LMU Spin-off Service and to support promising undertakings at an early phase of innovation development.
The exclusive six-month program offers researchers, students, and staff at LMU the opportunity to systematically work on developing their idea. Bringing highly relevant and impactful innovations to application is one of the crowning successes of scientific endeavor. Since 2024, moreover, it has officially been one of the principal tasks of universities by dint of the German government’s Future Strategy for Research and Innovation.
“We’re immensely proud of the accomplishments of the teams,” says Annie Weichselbaum, Program Lead of the Innovation Incubator at IEC. “Their success demonstrates the courage with which our highly motivated teams combine research excellence with entrepreneurial spirit, and we’re glad to be able to support these exceptional personalities from all disciplines at LMU through our program.”
According to Weichselbaum, the thematic variety of the teams mirrors the “interdisciplinary strength and innovative muscle of research at LMU.” Through the incubator program, experts from a huge variety of disciplines, such as physics, computer science, medicine, chemistry, and philosophy, have worked on a broad array of new ideas for applications in fields such as medical engineering, microscopy, the construction industry, and pharmaceutical research.
iNSyT (LMU Center for Nanoscience / Advanced Materials & Microscopy), founded by Dr. Mohsen Beladi Mousavi and Christoph Gruber, works on advances in nanoscale microscopy for the rapid development of critical materials for green energy. The project obtained an ERC Proof of Concept grant and secured EXIST Transfer of Research funding in 2024.
Ambit (LMU Philosophy/Sport), founded by Dr. Philipp Tschochohei, offers a web app to public sports facilities in Munich that is designed to motivate citizens to engage in sporting activity and foster communities among users. Ambit received an EXIST Business Start-up Grant in 2024.
AICU (LMU Medicine/MedTech), developed by Julia Yukovich, Shivangi Singh, and Dr. med. Thomas Melzer, provides researchers with software tools for data exploration and analysis in the medical sphere. AICU received an AI+Munich Grant, an EXIST Business Start-up Grant 2024, and a TUM Prototype Grant. It is also part of AI Founders, who are further developing the research tool for the biosciences.
Aicendence (LMU Physics/MedTech), founded by Johannes Strodel and Moritz Koch, has developed AI-supported software together with Cyto-ML, which enables automated cytological evaluations. This technology, which could take the burden of manual error-prone processes off the shoulders of clinical and technical assistants, is being further developed with the support of an EXIST Business Start-up Grant 2024 and an AI+Munich Grant.
SOLO (LMU Physics/Health), founded by Dr. Philip Böhm, Charlott Leu, José Mercado, and Michel Lewton, is revolutionizing single-cell analysis for healthcare with user-friendly hardware and AI-driven software. The company received a GoBio Initial Grant and an AI+Munich Grant to position itself in the domains of healthcare and deep tech.
BRIC-MIC (LMU Microbiology/Microscopy), founded by Gabriel Moya, presents an innovative microscopy platform, which is designed to make advanced imaging techniques available even to non-specialized laboratories by means of 3D printing and flexible components. BRIC-MIC has received ERC Proof of Concept funding for its portable microscopy systems, which allow highly precise analytical statements in the areas of medical diagnostics and environmental analysis.
ki-alz (LMU Medicine/MedTech), founded by Prof. Dr. med. Boris-Stephan Rauchmann, aims to improve diagnostic accuracy for early-stage Alzheimer’s disease in primary care and establish automated, high-precision, and patient-centered monitoring of therapeutic success. The company has obtained two consecutive phases of the GoBio Initial Grant for its AI-driven advances in Alzheimer’s diagnosis, which are setting new standards in medical engineering.
Econvio (CDTM / Real Estate), founded by Kai Riemenschneider, is dedicated to the development of decarbonization solutions for the construction industry. With its focus on sustainability, the company practices forward-looking entrepreneurship.
EpiCure (LMU Chemistry and Pharmacy), founded by Dr. Matthias Heiß, Corinna Pleintinger, and Yasmin Gärtner, is working on a cost-effective, broad-spectrum drug against leukemia. Having won the BayStartUP Business Plan Competition in 2024 and received the recognition of the LMU Innovation Incubator, the project is showing much pharmaceutical promise.
Applications for the next cohort of the LMU Innovation Incubator will be accepted until 6 October. The target group of the program comprises researchers, master’s students, and staff at LMU.