The #believebandich Challenge 2024 has been beaten and the winning startup is called: NOSI. The Tulln sensor startup, which is developing a digital nose, won Austria’s largest competition for young companies on Wednesday evening at the Erste Campus in Vienna and thus won the coveted title of “Startup of the Year 2024”. A total of eleven young companies that were winners of their own categories at the city pitches in the federal states took part in the final. NOSI represented the “AI & Robotics” category. As in previous years, presenter Fanny Stampf led the exciting evening.
Final of the #believebandich Challenge is a green event for the first time
In the competition, NOSI prevailed against the other finalists Mo Energy Systems, Gleap, Edamax, Independo, Econutri, p4b, Lokistix, wikimoves, infrared.city and flamengo. For winning the final, the young company will receive prize money of 10,000 euros from Erste Bank and Sparkasse, as well as a media package worth 10,000 euros and three coaching sessions from the Impact Hub. In addition, all finalists receive wildcards for the EY Scale-up Award.
On Wednesday evening, the eleven startups at Erste Campus presented their exciting pitchers. For the first time in the six-year history of the #believebandich Challenge, the final was a green event in which all the resources used were reused. The event was also awarded the Austrian Ecolabel, which further underlines the focus on sustainability.
NOSI gives machines a sense of smell
“Our goal is to offer young entrepreneurs a stage with the #believebandich challenge. It is important that they can all publicly show what they achieve. Many participating startups – not just the winners – went on to achieve great success. I am confident that this will also be the case with this year’s participants,” said Gerda Holzinger-Burgstaller, CEO of Erste Bank and Sparkasse, at the event.
The Startup of the Year 2024 pursues a very exciting and unique concept. NOSI (stands for “Network for Olfactory System Intelligence”) has developed the digital nose and teaches machines to smell. The startup relies on chemical sensors that essentially train a sense of smell. Smell patterns can be recognized using machine learning. “We are doing something that no one else dares to do: While other companies teach machines to see and hear, we concentrate on smelling and translating chemical signals into electronic ones,” explained Patrik Aspermair, CEO of NOSI, during his pitch.
“Real wow moments” at the finale
NOSI is characterized above all by its many possible areas of application. For example, the digital nose should be able to sniff out bed bugs in the hotel industry. With this concept, the young company convinced both the top-class jury and the representatives of the investors working with the #believebandich challenge. “NOSI offers a very innovative and new concept and also offers enormous potential,” said the well-known investor Hansi Hansmann, CEO of hans(wo)men and jury member, about the decision.
In addition to Hansi Hansmann, the jury also included Sabine Hönigsberger, Head of Corporate Customers Austria Erste Bank, Mariana Kühnel, Deputy Secretary General WKO, Heinrich Prokop, CEO Clever Clover and Chiara Witzemann, Head of Global Incubator Network Austria (GIN). But it wasn’t just NOSI that impressed the jury this year. “It was a particularly great year for the #believebandich challenge. The startups were great and there were some real wow moments,” says Heinrich Prokop, who can certainly imagine that one or two investments could come about here.
Independo is “Female Startup” of the year
It wasn’t just NOSI that received an award on Wednesday. There was also the special “Female Startup” award, sponsored by Fund F by Female Founders. Nina Wöss from Fund F awarded the prize to Independo. The startup offers a digital calendar diary that presents appointments not in text form, but in the form of symbols and audio. The aim of the young company is to give everyone the feeling of being included and to make the digital world accessible to everyone. The digital calendar wants to be particularly accessible to people with learning difficulties. The startup has both a male and female founder, Julia Kruselburger and Konstantin Strümpf.
Julia Kruselburger accepted the award and shared it with the other founders who were at the finale, i.e. Verena Schwab from Econutri, Laura Kaltenbrunner from flamengo, Ana Slanina from Edamax and Isabella Salzmann from Gleap. “The final showed once again how diverse the local startup scene is,” said Nina Wöss at the award ceremony.
The #glaubandich Challenge from Erste Bank und Sparkasse and Trending Topics was organized by the partners REWE, Magenta and Gründerservice der Wirtschaftskammer as well as accent, INiTS, AUSSENWIRTSCHAFT AUSTRIA, Impact Hub, Mastercard, Startup Salzburg, EY, wîse up, Science Park Graz, Talent Garden Vienna, Startup.Tirol, tech2b, Burgenland Business Agency, the Business Incubation Center of the European Space Agency, WSA, the WKO internationalization offensive go-international and tecnet equity.