With the joint network brand IDEENWALD of the startup office of the TU and the University of Kaiserslautern, prospective entrepreneurs and startups of tomorrow are supported in their step into self-employment. How exactly this can look like and which innovative ideas are realized by the young entrepreneurs can be followed in the future on the blog IDEENblatt. For a portrait of their startup, the founders have talked out of the closet and revealed interesting facts about their founding story, secrets of success and plans for the future.

LUBIS EDA: Computer chips of the future

How should the computer chip of the future be developed? The four-member team from LUBIS EDA has addressed this question and created software that can significantly shorten the development time of chips. In the computer industry, the time factor plays a crucial role: being the fastest manufacturer to offer your product to the market allows you to skim off the biggest profit. With LUBIS Concilium, LUBIS Primis and LUBIS Veritas, the founders have created three products that analyze chip models, generate detailed models from the analysis results and create automated test scenarios for the new chip design.

Tobias Ludwig and Michael Schwarz came up with the idea for the startup in 2018 during their time together as PhD students at the Chair for Development of Information Technology Systems (short: EIT) at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern. The LUBIS EDA team is completed by Dr. Max Birtel and Tim Burr. The foundation for the business idea was laid by a theoretical study on the topic by PhD student Joakim Urdahl, whom Ludwig met during his doctorate at the EIT. The team was also supported by the chair of Professor Wolfgang Kunz during the start-up itself: Ludwig and Schwarz were able to focus their own doctoral studies on their project, supervise master’s theses for evaluation, and receive feedback on their prototypes through publications. Further support was provided by the startup office of the University and University of Applied Sciences Kaiserslautern, the Business + Innovation Center Kaiserslautern and the EXIST research transfer grant from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.

In the future, the startup plans not only to spin off as a GmbH (limited liability company) from the TU Kaiserslautern, but also to complete an initial pilot project to test the software in practice in industry. According to Ludwig and his team, the first customers should follow soon after the test phase. The founders’ focus is on working together as a team and on constantly developing a holistic process and themselves further.

viamon: Designing photovoltaics safely

Founder Oliver Strecke has created an innovation in the field of photovoltaic (PV) systems with the startup viamon. As currently the only competitor, the trained locksmith and his employees manage to offer a carefree complete protection for PV systems. For this purpose, the team has developed the so-called TRAPS system – short for Theft, Recon, Access and Protection System –, the appropriate instrument. The system not only protects the material elements of the facilities, but also helps deter potential perpetrators. In addition, the system assists in the detection and investigation of the attempted theft and the prosecution of the perpetrator.

Strecke himself ventured into self-employment back in 2004 after training as a locksmith and studying industrial engineering. First he founded the engineering company Browsertec, before the idea for today’s viamon GmbH came about by chance during a conversation about the lack of options for protecting PV systems. With the support of his wife and co-founder Christina Strecke, development of the company’s own security system began. During the first years, Strecker reported a multitude of ideas, visits to trade fairs, as well as the search for suitable financing and the preparation of business plans. Today, the company’s success shows that the effort was worth it: a twenty-person team now belongs to viamon GmbH, which insures solar plants worth 1.5 billion euros.

Streckes declared goal for the coming years: to achieve market leadership and to manage the move to its own office building. The entrepreneur is already certain that things will change at viamon in the future – he sees himself more as a founder than as a managing director and would like to leave the company sooner or later in order to build up a new startup.

insight.out: Digital Diagnostics

With the digital eHealth platform “test.box,” another startup in the region wants to make things easier in the medical and healthcare industry. To this end, the team at insight.out has digitized psychological testing procedures previously conducted in paper format. This not only saves physicians and therapists time, allowing them to spend it on the patient’s actual treatment, but also allows them to access their patients’ test data at any time. The platform not only takes over the automatic evaluation of the tests, but also prepares their results clearly and comprehensively at the same time. As a result, the founders were able to enable testing not only across distances, but also without the need for subscriptions or the purchase of special licenses.

The idea for the foundation first emerged during Franca Rupprecht’s doctorate at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern and was later sharpened and further developed together with Andreas Schneider. The founding team is completed by psychologist Jan Spilski and computer scientist Matthias Streuber. The startup, which now has ten members, was supported by the startup office of the University and University of Applied Sciences Kaiserslautern and the Business + Innovation Center Kaiserslautern. These advised the founders to apply for the EXIST startup grant, which the young entrepreneurs also received.

With insight.out, the team around Rupprecht and Schneider wants to bring the best possible and at the same time affordable diagnostics into all areas of health. The vision of the founders envisions a holistic all-in-one solution that starts with the patient (who should understand what is happening with his data) and ends with the specialist. In the future, the platform will also be able to evaluate more complex tests and the startup’s service area will be expanded to include intervention and prevention in addition to diagnostics.