TU Munich to set up battery startup incubator

In order to strengthen Germany’s technological sovereignty in the field of battery technologies, the Battery Startup Incubator (BaStI) is being established at the Technical University of Munich. The move is to help strengthen European battery production capacities.

Funded with 3.3 million euros by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), BaStl, as an integral part of the TUM Venture Labs, will support and advise startups from all over Germany in the first phase. The aim is to accelerate the market entry of new battery technologies from research and thus reduce dependence on imports.

“Batteries are key to the energy transition and electromobility, but so far, at least 70% of global production comes from China. This dependency harbors risks we want to overcome through the targeted promotion of domestic initiatives. Germany has an enormously strong research position in this field, but the transfer to commercial enterprises is weak. With BaStI, we are creating for the first time a Germany-wide networked ecosystem that supports technology-oriented start-ups in the crucial start-up phase,” explained Dr Philipp Gerbert, CEO of TUM Venture Labs.

The battery incubator aims to offer a combination of scientific expertise and practical support. Prof Jennifer L.M. Rupp, Head of the TUM Chair of Solid State Electrolytes and herself founder of the battery start-up Qkera, added: “With BaStI, we are focusing on holistic support that combines technological innovation with entrepreneurial thinking. The aim is to transfer scientific findings more efficiently into market-ready products, thus strengthening Germany’s competitiveness. To achieve this, we need industrial production here on site.”

Jennifer Rupp acts as project coordinator at BaStl. Once operational, the startup incubator will concern itself with finding mentors and companies as initial customers and support with fundraising. The UnternehmerTUM startup centre contributes proven training formats such as XPRENEURS and XPLORE to the project and supplements the offer with practical access to a broad industry and investor network. As the TUM writes, with “the Munich Cluster of Excellence e-conversion, the incubator has a unique concentration of energy science expertise directly on site.”

A particular challenge for hardware battery startups that produce material components or even entire batteries is the high initial investment required. The development phase and scientific validation of an idea as well as the actual start-up phase and the construction of prototypes are funded beyond BaStI and TUMint.Energy Research with independent BMBF funding instruments as part of the umbrella concept for battery research.

Battery funding is currently in a difficult position in Germany: in September 2024, it was announced that from 2025 onwards, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) will no longer fund new battery research projects, instead only funding projects that have already been applied for. Accordingly, the TU Munich presumably applied for funding for the battery incubator last year. Although the acting German research minister Cem Özdemir raised hopes of new battery research funding in December, he said it would not be realistic to expect it to be realised until after the federal elections in February.

 

tum.de

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