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Monday, 14 December 2020 21:18

Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!

At the end of the year we would like to say thank very much for an exciting year with many new startups, inspiring people and great teams! We at MCEI want to thank you all for your outstanding perfomances despite the extraordinary circumstances. Even though it was a tough year dominated by the pandemic we were absolutely impressed what you made out of it and how well courses and events still went.

Stay tuned for further updates. We will give you a detailed overview over everything that happend the last year in early spring!

 

We wish you and you loved ones happy holidays. Have a relaxing christmas break and a great start in 2021! Never give up!

Your MCEI Team

Published in News
Tuesday, 15 January 2019 12:26

Startup Lounge #60 - MCEI Seed Award 2019 Finals

As February 19 draws near, we are getting ready to host the first Startup Lounge of the year! The 60th edition of the Startup Lounge would kick off with the much anticipated MCEI Seed Award 2019 Pitch Battle that will decide which of our 3 finalists of this season takes home the prestigious MCEI Seed Award of EUR 10,000. The winning team is awarded the Best University of Mannheim Student or Alumni Startup of 2018!

As promised before, we are ready to announce the 3 finalists that would be pitching their business ideas in front of an expert jury and the audience of the Startup Lounge Seed Award Special. After the jury’s assessment of the pitches, the winning team will be awarded the much coveted prize money of EUR 10,000 – a fund with no strings attached and no equity taken – to help advance the startup and foster its growth in its upcoming entrepreneurial journey.

Get your ticket here! And don’t forget to join our Facebook event for exciting updates!

Details

Date: 19 February 2019, Tuesday
Time: 19:30 – 23:00
Venue: Café L3, L3, 9, 68161 Mannheim 

Who are the finalists?

Beesonix

www.beesonix.de

Team: Alexander Kowollik, Timo Häcker, Mark Kirn, Birk Schweppe, Sai Manoj Marepalli

BeeSonix enables the public transport infrastructure to communicate with smartphones. With ultrasonic announcements, stops and vehicles can record and report the location of a passenger to routing and ticketing platforms. Thus, we are able to offer pay-as-you-go systems and unique passenger navigation, allowing a relaxed journey and high flexibility. Alternative methods like Bluetooth or NFC cannot keep up with ultrasonic communication, as they require expensive hardware installation and maintenance or are not as precise as our technology. Also, GPS has strong deficits underground. Beesonix helps to avoid these issues.

Blauherz

www.blauherz.eu

Team: Sven Butz, Johanna Stolch, Celina Kirschner, Christine Netzhammer, David Grüning, Florian Damovsky, Gabriel Himmelein, Jonas Bruder, Julian Gruber, Julien Vogel, Michelle Beck, Patricia Meka, Pauline Machtolf

Blauherz is an inclusive fashion label that hand-tailors fashionable clothing that everyone, people with and without disabilities, can identify with. We produce style without borders and contribute to an inclusive society by integrating socially disadvantaged people into our production of inclusive and sustainable products.

RideBee

www.ridebee.de

Team: Lukas Mohs, Tobias Reinerth, Fabian Seitz

We offer a platform, where one can find a carpooling partner or group within their company and share the commute to work. To provide value to those who already carpool, we organize users conveniently in travel groups that know each other personally, encourage regular use through gamification and incentives and provide useful everyday features such as keeping track of payments and live location sharing. The solution is designed for larger company sites in suburban and rural areas. A 30 km commute one-way sums up to over 4.000€ of vehicle costs and 42 eight-hour workdays of mainly unused travel time per year. For companies, providing parking spots can be an expensive and tedious task, a stressful commute leads to an unproductive workforce and they have an increasing corporate social responsibility concerning the environment. The B2B approach specifically offers numerous advantages: As people are travelling to the same destination and at similar times, it becomes easier to reach a critical mass. Further, the social barrier is reduced among colleagues and the employer can be involved to encourage the use of the platform.

Who are the jury members?

 

  • Andrea Kranzer
    Co-founder and Member of the Executive Board, Angels4Health e.V.
  • Frank Zumbruch
    Head of Creative Commission Mannheim / Cultural Economy Officer, Startup Mannheim
  • Klaus Dibbern
    Advisor, Wingcopter
  • Marcel Vogler
    Looks after Operations, Sales and Finance in Freigeist and Co-Owner of some McDonald's Franchises in Germany
  • Ruth Cremer
    Lecturer at HS Fresenius University of Applied Sciences and CEO at euworx UG
  • Sonja Wilkens
    Startup Consultant at Stadt Mannheim Wirtschaftsförderung

We are looking forward to an exciting competition!

Please note that we will take photos during the event that may be published in various social media websites (Facebook, etc.), through reports on the event (MCEI and ifm websites) or in general PR materials (flyers, presentations, etc.).


The MCEI Startup Lounge is your place to get inspired to create something new and to meet and mingle with the Mannheim Startup Ecosystem. Meet startups and creative minds to discuss great ideas in a laid-back atmosphere. Each Startup Lounge features an inspirational talk by a (usually early-stage) venture to get the discussion going. Each Startup Lounge has some budget to cover drinks (provided by either MCEI or one of our co-feature partners). Join us if you are into startups and want to expand your network in the Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region and live the entrepreneurial spirit.

Learn more about the MCEI Startup Lounge here.

 

Published in Startup Lounge

It was an exciting year for MCEI where we had the pleasure to meet many new startups, inventive teams, and inspiring people. For that we want to thank you and are looking forward to seeing you back in February with lots of new and exciting ideas. 

Stay tuned for our recap of 2018 which will follow soon. 

 

Have a relaxing Christmas break, happy holidays with your loved ones, and a great start in 2019! 

Your MCEI Team

Published in News
Saturday, 30 June 2018 18:30

Crowdfunding campaign @Mirabesque

MAN 633 Inside the Venture project (Spring 2018) of Louisa Gropengießer-Arlt aimed to support the Mannheim-based Startup Mirabesque.


Mirabesque is an online shop for high quality and unique dancewear, costumes and dance accessories. With great knowledge of their target group, the team creates value for their customers by facilitating the shopping process of dancewear. With their thought-out business model Mirabesque was able to convince the jury of the MCEI Seed Award 2018 and was the winning team in 2018.


Louisa´s project supported Mirabesque with a strategy and outline for a crowdfunding campaign. The campaign aims to support Mirabesque´s first own dancewear collection.

Wednesday, 07 February 2018 13:35

MCEI Sneak Peek Spring 2018

We very excited to dive into the spring semester 2018 with you! 

 

We will be back with our entrepreneurship courses on both, bachelor and master level. Our MAN 632 Advanced Entrepreneurship will continue to provide you with theoretical background and understanding about entrepreneurship and start-ups. If you have a more hands-on attitude you should go for MAN 453 Thinking Beyond Boxes as bachelor or MAN 633 Entrepreneurial Spirit as master student. In these accelerator-style courses we don't sit in lecture halls but want you to push your own start-up or help one of our amazing partners advance theirs. Our offerings are complemented by affiliated lecturers from the ifm Mannheim, bringing you MAN 450, MAN 636 and MAN 770.

MCEI courses this semester in a nutshell:

Affiliated courses:

 

Our Startup Lounges are already scheduled, and we are looking forward to a lot of fun networking events with you! We will kick off this season with the 2018 MCEI Seed Award, finding the best University of Mannheim start-up from 2017. We are also especially excited to celebrate our 50th Startup Lounge with you this semester! At our Founder Talks, you can get amazing insights from experienced entrepreneurs sharing their stories with you. 

We are looking forward with great anticipation to the entrepreneurship event of the year, the Q-Summit. After a successful inception last year, the summit is going into its second round from 26 to 28 April 2018. Save the date and stay tuned for more information. If you're thinking of choosing entrepreneur as a career path, come to our booth at the 2018 Career Fair. You can get first-hand information and establish contacts to start-ups to start your career journey. The Career Fair will be held from 17 to 19 April 2018 at the University.

Important Dates for the Spring Semester:

  • Startup Lounge #47 | MCEI Seed Award 2018 (20 February 2018 | 7:30pm | Café L3)
  • Startup Lounge #48 (6 March 2018 | 7:30pm | Café L3)
  • Startup Lounge #49 (10 April 2018 | 7:30pm | Café L3)
  • Career Fair (17 - 19 April 2018 | Ehrenhof)
  • Startup Lounge #50 (24 April 2018 | 7:30pm | Café L3)
  • Q-Summit (26 - 28 April 2018 | University of Mannheim)
  • Startup Lounge #51 (8 May 2018 | 7:30pm | Café L3)
  • Startup Lounge #52 | Pitch Special (22 May 2018 | 7:30pm | Café L3)

 

We are looking forward to an amazing semester with you! And "there is one more thing".... most likely to be revealed by mid-2018 :)! So, follow us on Facebook and MCEI.de and we will see you soon in our DesignLAB, our lectures and events!

Your MCEI Team

 

Published in MCEI Support
Wednesday, 31 January 2018 21:23

METRO Techstars Accelerator for Retail

The Techstars METRO Accelerator for Retail is recruiting for our 2018 program in Berlin! Applications close on 2nd Feb though, so if you’re an entrepreneur in the retail space, we hope you’ll check out the info below and get an application started!

Apply Now!

 

We’re looking for startups disrupting any part of the retail experience (anything across the value chain - from something like logistics or warehousing to customer analytics or AR applications in retail). For more info, please watch our program webinar.

A few highlights about the METRO Accelerator:

  • We handpick 10 startups for an intensive three-month program in mid-2018, built on a foundation of marked funding, commercial piloting and investment opportunities.
  • Within the program, startups gain close purpose-driven mentorship from industry leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs from different verticals of Retail, Tech and Wholesale trade.
  • Strategically integrated with unparalleled access to the intellectual capital of METRO, one of the world's most extensive wholesale food networks.
Published in Startup Support
Sunday, 28 January 2018 12:19

Primera Impact 100k Healthcare Challenge

Primera Impact is a collaboration of reasearchers ath the University of Cambridge and the SF based venture capital fund Primera Capital.

 

This investment challenge is seraching for startups tackeling health care!

Prizes include GPB 100.000 of equity investment and further merit-based grants. Application Deadline is the 16 March 2018.

Fina all the information at https://www.primeraimpact.com/.

 

Published in Events
Monday, 12 February 2018 13:56

Startup Lounge #47 - MCEI Seed Award 2018 Finals

The Startup Lounge is your place to get inspired to create something new, to discuss great ideas while hanging out with cool people and to meet startups, students and creative minds in a laid-back atmosphere. Join us if you are into start-ups and want to build a network in the Rhein-Neckar area!

 

We are going to kick off 2018 with a special Startup Lounge as we will find and award the winner or the MCEI Seed Award 2018! 

We received 18 amazing submissions and the hard task was up to the jury to find the three best startups for the finals. It was a tight race but we have our finalists now.

Mirabesque, evid.one and Reportix will pitch to win the 10.000 Euro Seed investment. 

 

Our jury this year consists of Klaus Dibbern, Sophie Horstmann, Eligiusz Skwara, Matthias Henel and Michael Woywode.

 

We are excited and keeping our fingers crossed for the finals!

 

JOIN THE EVENT ON FACEBOOK!

Date & Time: February 20, 2018 at 7:30pm

Location & full address: Cafe L3, L3 9, 68161 Mannheim

 

Please note: during our events photos and will be taken which may be published in various media (Facebook), reports on the event (MCEI and ifm websites) or general PR materials (Flyers, Presentations).

Published in Startup Lounge

We are looking back at an exciting year at MCEI. We have met lots of new startups and inspiring people, there were lots of advancements to our program, we have launched new courses and formats, and put up many events to foster the startup culture at the University of Mannheim and in the Rhine-Neckar Region. The following is the MCEI year 2017 in review... if you read this article for the Season's Greetings only, please scroll all the way down to the end of the article :-)...

Let us start our year review by taking a look at our networking events...

The MCEI year started with the awards ceremony of the 1st MCEI Seed Award sponsored by the Heinrich-Vetter-Siftung. More than 15 qualifying pitch decks were filed and competition was fierce. After an in-depth analysis by an expert team comprising investors and startup consultants, the three finalists, Ku.bus, Pulsehift and YourHenry, were invited to the final pitch battle in Startup Lounge #34. Furthermore, we hosted Orderpoints, CoTutor, Studypilot, deltron / VimbleSPediquickFreachly, MirabesqueEnvote, Fluchthelfer Upcycling and Clothing the Gap ( the latter two in an Enactus co-feature) in our regular Startup Lounges. The second half of the year was opened with a Startup Lounge Pitch Special with OrderpointsV|O Coffee and CoTutor (best in class from our newly launched applied accelerator-style courses MAN 453 Thinking Beyond Boxes and MAN 633 Entrepreneurial Spirit) pitching in front of an external jury with CoTutor being the winning team. The action-packed second half of the year was concluded with MAN 631 Final Pitch Presentations: The Latest Student Startups Live On Stage and the best of MAN 633 Entrepreneurial Spirit Pitch Battle in Startup Lounge #46, which was won by Mirabesque

In our Founder Talks, we had the pleasure to welcome Claude Ritter (Book A Tiger, Lieferheld) in cooperation with the ifm Förderkreis and C-Hub in spring. In October, we welcomed Christian Wiens (GetSafe) in a co-hosted Founder Talk with our partner bdvb Hochschulgruppe Mannheim. In November, we put up a Founder Talk Israel Special with Jonathan Glick and Oran Goldstein sharing insights on the Israeli startup ecosystem (moderated by Florian Fischer of our partner Startup Mannheim who co-hosted this event).

What's the new stuff?

Next to our well-established formats Startup Lounges and Founder Talks, we had a debut with “Startup as a career choice” on the University of Mannheim's Career Fair. We had Anyon, Cloudrail, contagtCoTutor, Ku.bus, leafsystems, MisterTripPulsehift, restado, SurveyCircle, Stocard and zingoo at our booth and many fruitful contacts were established. Another debut was the 1st Q-Summit at the University of Mannheim - THE Startup Conference event series with real impact and continuity and many student initiatives being involved (we had started a trial ourselves with the MCEI Startup Homecoming 2014 and were super happy to see what high level Q has achieved at its debut). At Q-Summit,  MCEI hosted UP / ReachCoTutorPulsehiftMisterTrip, Campusjäger, Crashtest Security, Pediquick and Cloudrail at our booth in the Startup Village an Jan of MCEI moderated the E-Commerce panel with top-speakers. We thank the Q-Summit team for the fantastic opportunity (more information on MCEI @Q-Summit here). In November, the first Startup Crawl (in cooperation with our partner thinc!) in Mannheim took place during which MCEI hosted Mirabesque and  V|O Coffee in the MCEI DesignLab. Next to these support schemes, we have launched two totally new course formats and concepts, which are fully accelerator-style following a "Scaling Lean" approach: MAN 453 Thinking Beyond Boxes and MAN 633 Entrepreneurial Spirit.

What else happened at MCEI in 2017? Here are some stats:

  • More than 1700 event attendees at MCEI and MCEI co-featured events in our 1st MCEI pillar "Inspiration"
  • 296 students in MCEI formats in our 2nd MCEI pillar "Education"
  • In our 3rd MCEI pillar "Support" we have supported more than 50 startup projects in our courses and Inside the Venture formats:
    • 27 Student Startup Projects (4 months support horizon each)
    • 10 Student Projects Inside the Venture (4 months support horizon each)
    • 2 Bachelor Theses Inside the Venture (2 months support horizon each)
    • 9 Master Theses Inside the Venture (5-6 months support horizon each)
    • 3 extensive consulting projects Inside the Venture Projects operated by INTEGRA e.V. (3-4 months support horizon each)
  • In its first year, our  MCEI DesignLab welcomed more than 100 bookings
  • We have launced two new applied courses: MAN 453 Thinking Beyond Boxes and MAN 633 Entrepreneurial Spirit
  • In January, Kai Bruchmüller (MCEI contacts and events) joined MCEI and in March Elisabeth Gourlin (MCEI PR) joined our team.
  • We updated parts of our website (many changes on the backend) and now you can find relevant information much faster. What is more, we introduced a new section called Success Stories, where you can receive first-hand information on MCEI-related and University of Mannheim Startups. We have (thanks to Elisabeth) more than 150 startups on display so far and (spoiler) there are many more success stories in the backend that are still work in progress. 

What is planned for 2018?

The spring 2018 Startup Lounges are already scheduled and we are looking forward to a lot of fun networking events with you! Check our events calendar on MCEI.de and follow us on Facebook. The 2nd MCEI Seed Award will be our 2018 kickoff. The application is still open: Here is more information on the application process! We are also looking forward to the second edition of Q-Summit in April, 2018. Stay tuned as more information will be made public shortly! And "there is one more thing"....most likely to be revealed by mid-2018 :-). 

We had a great year with lots of vibrant discussions and tons of fun with all of you and are looking forward to an exciting 2018!!

Lots of thanks and appreciation to all our speakers and visitors of the Startup Lounges and Founder Talks who have made these networking events so inspiring and fun! Also a big thank you to the Café L3 team for hosting us and being so supportive! Putting up all of these events would not be possible without you. We also thank all the participating Startups of our accelerator formats "Inside the Venture" and all our students who put in so much time and effort to reach the next level with their projects. It has been a truly amazing year for MCEI!

Have a relaxing Christmas break with your loved ones and we'll see you back in February - lots of new inspiring stuff is hopefully waiting for all of us to be explored in 2018!

Your MCEI Team 

 

Published in Reporting

After a short Christmas break, MCEI successfully entered 2017 and the new semester. In the spring term 2017, MCEI launched its new courses (MAN 453 & MAN 633), continued our series of events (Startup Lounge, Founder Talks) and we held the first MCEI Seed Award. In addition, MCEI was active as a participant and partner at university-wide events (Career Fair, Q-Summit).

 

Teaching

This semester, the courses MAN 453 ("Thinking Beyond Boxes - Advance Your Startup") and MAN 633 ("Entrepreneurial Spirit") took place for the first time. In the bachelor´s course MAN 453, a total of ten teams developed their own startup idea. In the master's course, four "Inside-the-Venture" projects (Freachly, Misterstrip, Pediquick, PulseShift) were held, in which students' teams worked on an entrepreneurial challenge in their given start-ups. We are looking forward to a continuation of the MAN 633 in the coming semester and the bachelor´s course (MAN 453) in the next spring semester (FSS 2018)!

Furthermore, the courses MAN 636 (International Entrepreneurship and Managing Change), MAN 631 (Advanced Entrepreneurship), MAN 450 (Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Business Model Design) were held. Furthermore, several Bachelor's and Master's theses in the field of entrepreneurship were successfully completed.

 

Events

The first start-up lounge of the semester was already a special highlight: The MCEI Seed Award 2017 (February 14, 2017) for the most prospective start-up of Mannheim students and alumni from the previous year was awarded this year for the first time. The prize was awarded with a prize money of €10,000, which was donated by the Heinrich-Vetter-Foundation, and is intended to support the start-up in further development. The team of PulseShift convinced the jury of their idea and won the MCEI Seed Award 2017 in an interesting and highly competitive last round. Once again, a special thanks to the Heinrich-Vetter-Foundation!

During the semester, (student) start-ups from the two courses MAN 453 and MAN 633 (Orderpoints, CoTutor, Studypilot, deltron / Vimble S) as well as the Startups Pediquick and Freachly were our guests at the Startup Lounge. A big thank you goes to the team of the Café L3, for the great support with our Startup Lounges and other events.

Serial entrepreneur and investor Claude Ritter (Lieferheld, Book A Tiger) came to Mannheim to share his experience with us in the context of a co-featured Founder Talk (February 21) with the ifm Förderkreis and the C-HUB founders center.

In the spring, MCEI participated in the Career Fair (4-6 April 2017) and the Q-Summit (19-21 April 2017), with a dedicated booth featuring "Startup as a Career Choice". Numerous start-ups (Anyon, Cloudrail, contagt, CoTutor, ku.bus, leafsystems, MisterStrip, restado, SurveyCircle, Stocrad, zingoo) were able to give a broad insight into the exciting world of entrepreneurship.

At the Q-Summit, a conference organized by students from the University of Mannheim about innovation and entrepreneurship, the MCEI was represented with a tent in the Startup Village. At our booth, the start-ups UP / Reach, Cotutor, PulseShift, MisterTrip, Campusjäger, Crashtest Security, Pediquick and Cloudrail were able to present their foundations and get in touch with interested parties. In addition, the e-commerce talk “Sales Innovations vs. Product Innovation – Can Germany only do E-Commerce?” was held by Martin Rost (Zalando), Lukas Brosseder (eDarling) and Sami Charaf Eddine (RWTH Aachen, Mobile Robotics) and moderated by Dr. Jan Zybura.

 

More news about the MCEI

In recent months, MCEI has also done a lot on the MCEI website (mcei.de). In addition to the further development of the Success Stories, there are also some news in the category "About us" (including MCEI profile, press area) as well as an update of our “Partner” category.

We are also very excited about a contribution in the “DUB-Unternehmermagazin” (Issue 2/2017), in which the MCEI and three MCEI supported startups were presented. In the FORUM Magazine of the University of Mannheim (Issue 1/2017), the events and offers of the MCEI were also discussed in a detailed article.

You can find the German language wrap-up on the website of the Institute for SME Research and Entrepreneurship.

 

We wish our students, start-ups and partners a great summer break! See you in September for new projects, cooperations and events!

Published in Reporting
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