Monthly update from our startups

November was a good month for traceless as they managed to win not only one, but two great prizes! Via LinkedIn, they first informed their followers about the award they received from Falling Walls Foundation for Breaking the Wall to Sustainable Plastic Alternatives. Just like us, the Falling Walls jury came to the conclusion that traceless is the startup with the most needed innovation, the most economic potential and the strongest team. And just a few weeks later, traceless won another award: the Darboven IDEE prize, which is granted exclusively to female founded businesses.

Find out more about Daboven IDEE-Förderpreis here

And why exactly was November such a happy month for Gelatex? Well, there are two very good reasons! First, the Estonian startup celebrated its fifth birthday in the beginning of this month and can look back at a really great success story so far. And second, because this success story continues! Later in November Gelatex announced that they managed to raise 1.2 million euros in a seedround. In an interview with sifted they elaborate on their future plans and what they want to use the investment for: revolutionizing the cultured meat production!Gelatex is not producing the cultured meat itself but the scaffolds needed for cultured meat which they then sell to firms using it for their production. The startup says that this innovative method can make cultured meat production 90% cheaper in the future.

Find out more about Gelatex’s plans here

November 19th is the International Women’s Entrepreneurship Day, an event, which was obviously also celebrated in Spain. For this occasion, the “Alto Comisionado para España Nación Emprendedora” published a guide of “Female Referents of Spanish Innovative Entrepreneurship” and referenced Venvirotech’s co-founders Patricia Aymà Maldonado and Noelia Márquez Alfaya in this list. But that’s by far not all: Also within the context of the International Women’s Entrepreneurship Day, Patricia Aymà Maldonado and Noelia Márquez Alfaya were given the opportunity to talk to Spain’s current president Pedro Sánchez and to even present him their bioplastic made from organic waste. What a great honor!

Find out more about the “Alto Comisionado para España Nación Emprendedora” in Spanish here

Circular Stories is a creative impact agency, which helps people and companies operating in the circular economy grow their business. They recently supported our former Green Alley Award finalist Circular IQ by creating a video brand story for them. “Our main goal with Circular IQ is to change non-financial reporting across the globe” says CEO and Founder Roy Vercoulen who explains Circular IQ’s mission and their circular solution in the video. The startup wants to provide businesses with data clarity through a software solution that gives them access to data they really need to evaluate their impact on the environment instead of, what they would call, “bad data”. Another aspect the video focuses on is one of Circular IQ’s most important partnerships with Nederlandse Spoorwegen. The company’s program manager Ilse de Vis van Eekeren explains how they achieve their circularity goals by partnering up with the startup.

Watch the Video here

Erik Schoneveld, Founder and CEO of Sustonable was interview by Jack Roberts from 4zero within the scope of 4zero Impact Video Series. 4zero are a talent partner who work solely with impact lead businesses who are using technology to solve environmental problems, namely climate change. They talked about Sustonable’s solution, which is a nice and sustainable surface material made of recycled PET bottles and hard minerals, like quartz. The advantage of their engineered material is that it is thinner and lighter than regular surfaces and that it produces less waste and requires less raw materials in production. Erik Schoneveld also explained his company’s vision, mission and their main goal which is to tackle plastic pollution. A long-term goal of Sustonable is to be present everywhere in the world “We want to grow the company and have at least one production plant on each continent”, says the CEO.

Watch the whole interview here

This month, infarm’s CTO and co-founder Guy Galonska received a lot of media attention: He was interviewed by KfW, which is a state-owned investment and development bank which regularly publishes stories about sustainable ideas, innovations and companies on their website. Guy gave them a tour through their next generation farm in Berlin and elaborated in his company’s aim to become a major food producer of the future: “We offer locally grown, freshly harvested food. This is our way of offering a solution to the problem of global, often unstable supply chains with long, environmentally harmful transport distances”. Moreover, he spoke to journalist Isabel Hilton at the Web Summit 2021 and talked about his company’s success and on what differentiates them from other indoor farming companies. Guy explained that it is mostly the efficiency of land and resource use and the modularity aspect, which makes his company’s solution very scalable and allows them to grow very fast.

Read the full KfW interview here and watch Guy Galonska’s interview at Websummit here.