The RootCamp Demo Day is designed as an exchange platform for the agrifood tech scene in which corporations, investors and startups can discuss current topics like sustainability, circular economy, green packaging, digitalization of agriculture, and soil improvement techniques. Let’s see what happened this year and how we celebrated the Batch #2.
This year RootCamp celebrated its second Demo Day on February 10th together with its partners K+S, KWS, Agritechnica, hannoverimpuls and KPMG.
Over 200 tickets were sold on the digital platform Hopin and over half of the digital attendees came from outside Germany. Live on stage from the RootCamp’s office were Philipp Rittershaus, managing Director of RootCamp, and Gaia Amatteis, Program Manager. The format was straightforward: 7 startups pitches, 2 panel discussions and networking.
RootCamp early-stage startup program is an entrepreneurship program that helps accelerate participants' businesses thanks to mentoring, individual coaching and hands-on experience through pilot projects with our partners. The program culminates in the Demo Day where startups present their business ideas after 12 weeks of intense coaching.
This year the 7 startups in the program were selected from more than 300 applicants from all over the world. The program lasted 12 weeks and startups received individual coaching and mentoring on the main business areas: legal, tax, IP, business model, financial planning, fundraising, marketing, sales and pitch training (more than 150 hours from more than 50 mentors!!!).
The startups of Batch #2 came from different countries (Germany, Norway, Poland, Turkey, India, South Africa, Belarus) and from various industries (Software-as-a-Service, marketplaces for products, goods or services, sensors for livestock, biomaterials, robotics). Three out of three startups (DigiFarm, Bioweg and FibriTech) that ran for the EIC grant won the prize with a collective 6,7M euro. Moreover, E-Terry won the prize as Best Innovative Ag Robotics Startup 2021 by World FIRA.
Here are the founders that pitched:
➡️ If you want to watch their pitch, watch the video below.
The first panel discussion called “Biotech vs AgriTech - sourcing the impact” was moderated by Caspar Olenhusen, Startup Coach at RootCamp. In the panel we tried to mix different perspectives: the corporate perspective with Dr. Alexander M. Wiegelmann, Head of Transactions at KWS, financial with Alexander Engelke, Advisor at Rentenbank, scientific with Michał Słota, Biotechnologist and of a farmer with Christoph von Heydebreck.
The central topic was to understand the role of Biotechnology in the AgTech industry and whether these 2 industries are complementary or still far away from each other.
Key findings of the panel discussion were:
The second panel discussion looked into the “Success factors for Industry and Startups to collaborate” moderated by Philipp Rittershaus, Managing Director of RootCamp. Part of this panel were Dirk Neumann, Head of Corporate Development and Innovation at K+S Group, Francisco Martin Augusto, Head of the Technical Customer Advisory at K+S Group, David Gebhard, CEO of Aquapurna and Felix Haarstick, Assistant Manager at KPMG Innovation.
Implementation of technology is a fundamental part of the RootCamp program. We enable the collaboration between industry partners and startups through pilot projects. After the first 3 months of the acceleration program, startups in our program have the possibility to pitch in front of a jury the pilot project idea that they will have to implement in the second phase of the program.
In the panel discussion, the parties involved discussed a specific pilot project, now finalized, that K+S conducted together with Aquapurna (RootCamp Alumni from Batch#1) as part of the RootCamp program.
Key findings of the discussion were:
The Demo Day of Batch#2 was a blast, and we are very proud of the achievements of all startups. Stay tuned to learn more about the new batch of startups and the result of the implementation projects that we will present in the next months. To do so, subscribe to our newsletter!