Pitch-competition won: Dr. Anne Vortkamp wins first prize for her coming start-up AgriBluBio

Today, Dr. Anne Vortkamp, supported by Dr. Philipp Lemke, won the pitch contest of the REACH - EUREGIO Start-up Center  of our University. Anne and Philipp, both alumnae/alumni of our group, are preparing the foundation of their biotech start-up AgriBluBio, aiming to commercialize our next-generation chitosans. They successfully applied for a Start-up Transfer.NRW grant, securing financial independence for two years, mainly to conduct multiple field trials with their first product, CaraPlant, a balanced mix of structurally and functionally well-characterized chitosans to be used as a multi-purpose, broad-spectrum plant biostimulant. They are supported by the start-up center of our university, REACH. They were accepted into the REACH Incubator program which starts every three months with ca. six new start-up teams. After three to six months, these teams are invited to publicly present their star-up ideas with a 5-min-pitch followed by a 5-min-Q&A discussion. Today, eight teams pitched - and the audience voted for AgriBluBio as the winner! They won two tickets for this year’s “Enschede Slush’D”, one of the most prominent start-up fairs in Europe. The event was staged at the “fyal central”, a coffeeshop and bar in the very centre of Münster, where the start-up enthusiasts kept celebrating and discussing, with free drinks sponsored by REACH.