Another winner from Harburg in competition for EU funding
The start-up recalm GmbH, based in the “Innovation & Startup Campus” in Harburger Schloßstraße in Hamburg’s Harburg district, has won lucrative funding, beating competition from 244 companies throughout Europe, of which 20 came from Germany.
The location has an impressively high success rate: Since EU funding was introduced, three start-ups based in Harburger Schloßstraße have received support: MB Partner, Pydro and recalm. A total of five companies from Hamburg have now made it into this elite group: the others are Silicon Planet and Meddrop GmbH. It is no coincidence that Harburg’s success rate is so much higher than average. There are lots of innovative start-ups with engineering expertise here, and the importance of the infrastructure should not be underestimated either, not least support with getting funding like this.
Prompted by this latest success, Tutech spoke to Lukas Henkel of recalm GmbH.
You’re working to implement close-to-market technology for actively reducing noise pollution. Who will your products help to have a quieter life in future?
We’re driven by the vision to improve people’s quality of life by reducing noise, and so we’re developing a product that actively cuts noise. Our product is going to be used initially in construction and agricultural machinery. Operators of these machines run about a 60% risk of hearing loss. Longer term we could see our technology being used in aircraft, cars or public transport.
You’ve qualified for the SME instrument. Tell us about it and what your successful bid means for your project.
We’re obviously delighted to have been added to the list of winners, especially since the success rate for the SME instrument is really low – only about 10%. One of the people who helped us draw up our bid for funding was Margarete Remmert-Rieper of TUTECH INNOVATION GmbH. We see the funding as giving us a great chance to commercialise particular projects that we just wouldn’t have been able to take forward without this injection of capital. Funding lasts for six months. At recalm one of the things we’re going to use it to focus on is the leading trade fair in our field, bauma, where we’re going to be exhibiting in April 2019.
You’ve moved into Harburger Schloßstraße with your start-up. What makes this the place to be for you?
We only set up the business in 2017, and so we enjoy the interaction between the start-ups based here. For a hardware start-up like ours, the infrastructure offered here is great. The office space and the workshops are ideally suited to us at our current stage. The major benefits for us of being close to TUHH are the Startup Dock and access to university resources such as the workshops there. We hope we’ll have the chance in future to carry on benefiting from this mix of expertise and practical support.
What support do you still need for your start-up?
At the moment we think we’re in a good position financially, and not just because of the funding. In the coming year we plan to start pilot phases with innovative machinery manufacturers and construction companies. Several companies have already expressed interest, but we’d be delighted to hear from others.
More information on “SME instrument”:
ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en/h2020-section/sme-instrument
More information on advice for SMEs at Tutech:
Consultancy and Competence Development
Contact
Jochen Kilian
Communication & Marketing
Tutech Innovation GmbH
Telefon: +49 40 76629-6121
Email: kilian@tutech.de
Photo: recalm GmbH
