The Helmholtz Association is providing funding to four new spin-off projects by scientists conducting research at Helmholtz Centres. The researchers will receive up to € 260,000 in seed capital – half from the Helmholtz Association’s Initiative and Networking Fund and at least the same amount again from their own Helmholtz Centre. The funding scheme, which is called Helmholtz Enterprise, is particularly helpful for company founders during the critical start-up phase and speeds up the market readiness of research findings. In 2013, external reviewers recommended eight spin-off projects for funding.
“Our researchers come up with outstanding ideas for innovative products and services,” says Rolf Zettl, Managing Director of the Helmholtz Association, “but developing them into a functioning business model for a young high-tech company is always a major challenge.” Zettl points out that the start-up phase of a spin-off is particularly critical due to a lack of funds and the absence of profit at that stage. Helmholtz Enterprise funding is designed to bridge this gap and give founders the breathing space they need to further develop their business plans. To this end, the Helmholtz Centres will also be reimbursed for the spin-offs’ staffing costs. And to boost the projects’ chances of success even further, the Helmholtz Association will also provide support in the form of advice from experienced experts.
Funding for four new projects
The external reviewers believe that the four new projects accepted for funding all have the potential to do well on the market. The founders impressed the reviewers with their excellent and highly promising technologies.
1. TP-SOA – precise static software analysis tools
The founders Florian Merz and Carsten Sinz of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have been working on an automated software quality-inspection tool with their team since 2010. Their highly precise static analysis tool, the LLBMC (Low-level Bounded Model Checker), is intended to improve quality-assurance processes, which become an ever-greater source of uncertainty as systems become more complex and more interlinked. The tool is designed to identify programming errors quickly and reliably and correct them automatically. The LLBMC is more precise than competing products and features more exact mathematical modelling.
The technology is particularly suitable for sectors with very high safety standards. Thus it will soon be used in areas such as manufacturing and supply in the automotive industry. Other potential sectors are medical technology, aviation and plant engineering. The LLBMC is currently a prototype. There are plans to make it more user-friendly, for example by introducing a graphical user interface and making it more suitable for use with large software programmes. The future company will continue to develop the LLBMC as a flexible platform that can serve as a basis for customer-specific products.
Contact:
Dr Carsten Sinz
Tel.: +49 721 608 44212
E-mail: carsten.sinz@kit.edu
2. SenseUp-Biotechnology – faster strain development in industrial biotechnology thanks to high-throughput screening and recombineering (HTSR)
Stephan Binder and Georg Schendzielorz of Forschungszentrum Jülich are the founders of this promising enterprise. Their aim is to develop highly productive micro-organisms for the manufacture of amino acids, organic acids and biopharmaceutical agents for industrial biotechnology and the pharmaceutical industry. The high-throughput screening and recombineering technology (HTSR) developed by the research team is a key technology that enables micro-organisms to be developed far faster than is possible with traditional biological processes.
Biological manufacturing processes are based on microbial production strains. The more active the strains, the more efficient the overall production process is. The micro-organisms are genetically modified to boost their productivity. Traditional techniques are very time-consuming and thus of limited usefulness. The HTSR technology increases strain development twentyfold and thus has significant cost advantages for customers. This greatly speeded-up process enables up to 50,000 micro-organisms to be analysed per second and to isolate the required variants immediately. This opens up new development methods that could not previously achieve the necessary quantities. Possible areas of application are the biotechnical manufacturing of pharmaceutical agents and production processes for basic and fine chemicals used in sectors such as the food and animal feed industry.
The HTSR technology has already been successfully demonstrated on amino acids. Because there is already considerable interest from industry – from companies including BASF, Evonik and Lanxess – the prospects for establishing a successful company are very good.
Contact:
Stephan Binder / Georg Schendzielorz
Tel.: +49 2467 61 3294
3. SubSeaSpec – underwater mass spectrometry
With their planned start-up, Torben Gentz and Michael Schlüter of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, aim to make underwater mass spectrometry available on a commercial basis and to provide the oil and gas industry and marine research with specific services in this field.
Using the equipment and methods developed by the founders, it is possible to carry out high-resolution, simultaneous on-the-spot analysis of gases (e.g. methane, carbon dioxide and oxygen) dissolved in water systems – something that cannot be done with the methods currently available. The process can also provide a rapid and very accurate analysis of samples with an extremely low detection limit. Until now scientists have been able to take only a limited number of samples, which they must then analyse in the laboratory – a time-consuming and expensive process. The data density achieved by the new technology is up to 750 times higher, thus making it possible to obtain a high-resolution image of gas-emission points and thereby greatly reducing the length of time for which ships are needed and the associated costs.
For example, underwater mass spectrometry can be used in the inspection of offshore pipelines, to provide early warning of an imminent oil leak and in the exploration of offshore oil and gas fields. The technology is also suitable for monitoring water quality, especially in connection with the environmental impacts of offshore drilling and production processes. It is also useful in general marine research.
Contact:
Dr Torben Gentz
Tel.: +49 471 4831 2029
E-mail: torben.gentz@awi.de
Prof. Michael Schlüter
Tel.: +49 471 4831 1840
E-mail: michael.schlueter@awi.de
4. Light transport manipulation – a physically based calculation process for realistic representation of visual light effects
The spin-off team at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology led by Anton S. Kaplanyan and Thorsten-Walther Schmidt has come up with a unique software solution for the realistic representation of computer-generated visual light effects of the sort used in the film and television industry. This sophisticated, physically based calculation process enables light effects to be used and modified faster and more easily. The software can be integrated into standard graphics programmes without difficulty.
It is principally intended for use by professionals who work with high-quality visualisation and representation, such as digital artists, light designers, product designers and architects, since it enables them to create a realistic, photo-like image of 3D projects. There is major market potential in connection with the production of films – not just animated films – and video games.
The technology has already been demonstrated at the two largest conferences for visual effects and used at a workshop at the Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg; it attracted great interest among users.
Contact:
Carsten Dachsbacher
Tel.: +49 721 608 43967
E-mail: dachsbacher@kit.edu
The Helmholtz Association contributes to solving major challenges facing society, science and the economy with top scientific achievements in six research fields: Energy; Earth and Environment; Health; Key Technologies; Structure of Matter; and Aeronautics, Space and Transport. With almost 36,000 employees in 18 research centres and an annual budget of approximately €3.8 billion, the Helmholtz Association is Germany’s largest scientific organisation. Its work follows in the tradition of the great natural scientist Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894).
Contacts for the Media:
Janine Tychsen
Deputy Head Communications and Media Relations
Tel.: +49 (0)30 206 329-24
Jörn Krupa
Head of Technology Transfer
Tel.: +49 (0)30 206 329-72
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