The fifth city pitch of the #believeinyourself challenge took place on Tuesday at Tabakfabrik Linz. Seven young companies from the “Industry, AI & Robotics” category took part in the event to present their exciting concepts. It was about one of the coveted final places in Austria’s largest start-up competition from Erste Bank and Sparkasse, the start-up service of the Chamber of Commerce and Trending Topics.
The winner on Tuesday was the startup Holloid. This is a Boku Wien spin-off that develops holographic microscopy for real-time 3D imaging. The team has developed a hardware solution for this that is supported by artificial intelligence. This combination enables automatic measurements of hundreds of thousands of individual bacteria, algae, yeast, microplastics and other particles. Holloid is to be used in the food, pharmaceutical, cosmetics and manufacturing industries.
Holloid: “Overwhelmed to win against such a strong peer group”
“At the beginning of the City Pitch event, I expected that I had a very good chance of winning the hearts and minds of the jury with Holloid. However, my conviction waned more and more after each pitch and I am really overwhelmed to have won against such a strong peer group,” says Marcus Lebesmühlbacher, CEO and co-founder of Holloid. “We applied with Holloid because the #believeinyourself challenge is an established institution in the Austrian startup landscape that is well known. That’s why I didn’t think twice about participating.”
“After the #believeinyourself challenge, we’re going back to funding applications, reporting and the usual everyday business. For us, the next steps are larger rounds of financing, acquiring additional customers and delivering additional impact, which is what we are aiming for at Holloid,” Lebesmühlbacher continues. Holloid will now pitch for the title “Startup of the Year” at the final of the #believeinyourself challenge on May 24th. The startups REEDuce, Worm Systems, Shopstory and Goldblatt have already qualified for the final.
Holloid was able to assert itself against the startups danube.ai, clir Technologies, ANYLIFT, 506 Data & Performance, bee produced and Incus on the pitch day, which was attended by top-class speakers (all information about the startups that competed here).
Holloid: Viennese startup wants to revolutionize microscopy
Jury: “Head-to-head race with high AI density”
“The jury agreed on three points: First, that it is an extremely tight and difficult decision. Secondly, that we are thrilled at how advanced these very young companies are in terms of technology. Thirdly, that Holloid has earned today’s winning title because both the product and the market and the first sales meet the all-round package,” says Johannes Pracher, head of the Linz launch pad. In addition to Pracher, the jury also included Christina Baschinger, project manager at the Upper Austrian Chamber of Commerce, Harald Müller, CEO of Compunity and Peter Buchinger, investment analyst at tecnet equity.
“It was a head-to-head race with a high AI density. The decision was difficult for all of us because we had little information about the business models and it was a challenge to assess the different technologies in such short pitches. But then we made the right decision with a tech startup that combines both hardware and SaaS, a top team and good business models,” says Harald Müller, CEO of Compunity. “It wasn’t easy – there was a lot of discussion. It was a close election because there were great ideas and start-ups,” agrees Christina Baschinger.
In addition to the ticket for the final of the startup challenge, Holloid received prize money of 1,000 euros from Erste Bank and Sparkasse as well as 2 annual licenses each for wîse up, the digital training and further education platform of the Austrian Chambers of Commerce. wîse up offers more than 15,000 innovative learning content in the form of videos, interactive formats, texts and webinars that are suitable for EPU, startups, SMEs and corporates.
All further information on the #believeinyourself Challenge 2023 can be found here.
The pictures of the pitch:
All photos © Frank Haas / Sparkasse OÖ
