isiQiri, another tech2b startup, received 100.000 EUR from AWS Preseed fund in March. With this financial support further steps can be accomplished to finish the prototype. As a next step isiQiri starts to raise another 200.000 EUR from Business Angels as part of their financial strategy.

AWS Preseed: Austrian pre-financing fund up-to EUR 100.00 for innovative startups.

What is isiQiri? read more…

tech2b Startup mogree gets a financial boost and plans to go international. Experts are already excited about the new concept and are curious about the next steps.

Interview with Greentech founder Alexander Krajete. A new startup at the tech2b high-tech business incubation program.

Founder: Dr. Alexander Krajete

Industry segment: white biotechnology,  renewable energy, waste gas / waste management

Market: 1. Europe, 2. USA, 3. Asia

Competition: Carbon Capture Storage (CCS), biogas plants (also collaborators)

Product: GreenTech specializes in the development of a biotech process for the direct conversion of waste gases to a gaseous energy carrier. The business model ist based on technical consulting and process development in an early and medium stage. Plant design, construction and operation will be carried out by other partners.

Interview

How did you come up with the business idea?

The inspiration came suddenly during my employment in Norway on a Sunday morning in April 2007. In Chemical Engineering News, I read an article entitled ‘From Waste to Energy’, describing a company from New Zealand which uses genetically modified microbes from the company Genentech for the conversion of waste gas from steel industry to bioethanol.

As a postdoc at UC Berkeley, I gained experience in CO2 chemisty, Genentech from South San Francisco happened to be the first company to call me for an interview. I started to combine the pieces ‘CO2, Genentech, energy’, and I came up with the approach to convert waste gases to methane.

What is special about your new product?

The intention to develop and upscale a process for the converstion of waste gases to methane is new. Other biological processes as for instance fermentation in biogas plants utilize a solid / liquid raw material. GreenTech’s novel process produces a gaseous energy carrier exclusively from emission gases. GreenTech’s process has higher conversion rates due to accelerated kinetics.

What impact will your product have on the market?

The process converts waste gases like CO2 and other components. We generate value from waste which is directly linked to an increase of energy efficiency. At a later stage, we intend to combine the novel process with renewable electricity which would allow the storage of solar and wind electricity.

What do you think will be the opinion of the competition?

The acceptance of the novel technology clearly correlates with the country’s resources. The idea was originallly developed in Norway which is rich in oil and gas. The support for the novel approach was rather limited though. The situation was different in Austria and Germany. People listened enthusiastically to the novel approach, now we witness a huge support. This was one of the main reasons which made me return back to Austria after more than 5 years spent in USA and Norway.

The novel technology will be placed in a new market, I therefore see rather cooperation opportunities than  competition.

What is the future of your company?

We intend to found the company in Linz, Austria which has an amazing accompanying infrastructure in mechanical, electrical engineering and automation. Biotechnology will be a novel industry in this part of Europe. Interestingly, potential customers can be found in this region, as well.

Currently, we are designing a prototype reactor for industrial applications, the process data are being evaluated in the USA.

After completion of the engineering work, the reactor will be tested under real life conditions with industrial waste gas. In case the pilot reactor passes the validation test, we will proceed with production in big scale for the European market.

The main strategy of the SIAB Business Solutions is to offer SAP in the ERP field ERP cost effective and time saving as well as easy to handle SMEs in the Austrian market. Therefore, SIAB addresses the SME segment successfully with it is pre-fabricated (Productization) and simplified (Simplification) components.

After the successful participation in the i2b & go business plan competition in 2007, the BistroBox startup team from tech2b participates in a Knut Ogris Film which launches a three documentary series reporting from young founder teams in Austria. The movie will be broadcasted on the Austrian national television (ORF).

SPANTEC presented their entire product portfolio in Vienna, and demonstrated the first live version of their NEON technology to a selected pool of experts.

NEON is a generic, efficient and wireless sensor platform and can be used in fields where enormous amount of data being collected as well as processed and interpreted. Based on special network technology and modular structures of the network nodes, the system is easy to install and upgradeable at any time. Additionally, it is easy to configure for any user.

CEO Armin SPANTEC Blaha hosted the event and presented the innovative technology together with Thiemo Hunger and Stefan Leipte, the two technical experts. It was followed by an open discussion concerning status quo and future steps of the company. With this event SPANTEC set an important step for building a succesful company.

Expert Pool:
DI Alexander Revesz (Wissenschaftlicher Mentor),  LKT-Laboratory for  Plastoc Engineering
Dr. Andreas Schrempf, University of Applied Sciences for Medical Engineering
Dr. DI Arnold Baca und DI Philipp Kornfeind, ISW-Institute for Sports Science, Department for Biomechanic and Sport Information Technology
Dr. Werner Kurschl, University of Applied Sciences Hagenberg