The Bonn-based start-up Pheno-Inspect GmbH has won first prize in the Euregional Start-up Pitch competition. Founder Dr. Philipp Lottes and his team offer an AI-supported platform for agriculture, beating five other start-ups from Germany and the Netherlands. The prize is worth €3,000 and was awarded by the guests at the 19th Private Equity Conference NRW. Pheno-Inspect was developed from research conducted by Dr. Philipp Lottes and Prof. Dr. Cyrill Stachniss at the Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformation and the PhenoRob Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bonn.

Founders from the University of Bonn have long appreciated the coworking space at DIGITALHUB.DE. It has now received two awards at the German Coworking Prize 2025, in the categories “Space of the Year” and “Most Innovative Space.” The Hub team accepted the awards at the ceremony in Berlin on May 15. The University of Bonn's Transfer Center enaCom cooperates closely with DIGITALHUB and has its own offices opposite the main train station. The university also allows people interested in starting a business to use coworking spaces at DIGITALHUB.

At the German Biotechnology Days (DBT) 2025, the team led by Dr. Marcel Hövels and Dr. André Neff from the University of Bonn was awarded the BioRegions Innovation Award 2025 for their project “Sweethoven Biotech – Health with Enjoyment.” They are one of three winners of the award, which is endowed with 2,000 euros each.

The start-up project “Bone2Gene” received an award in the category “early-stage innovation” at the life-science technologies event BioVaria, that took place in April in Munich. Dr. Behnam Javanmardi pitched their business idea and technology which focuses on using artificial intelligence (AI) to make genetic bone conditions easier to spot. He develops this AI technology together with Prof. Dr. Peter Krawitz – both from the Institute of Genomic Statistics and Bioinformatics at the University Hospital Bonn – and their team. The project is currently funded by a GO-Bio initial grant to get its product ready for market launch. 

Are you interested in start-ups, entrepreneurship, and innovation? Then mark the upcoming workshops and events organized by the Transfer Center enaCom in your calendar. You will learn useful tools and methods for developing your own ideas, creating business plans, and managing innovations. And for all computer scientists and modelers: Join the #Hack4Surgery hackathon on June 6 and use machine learning to help improve surgical decisions in the emergency room and save lives!

The Start-up Spring School showcased a wide range of innovative ideas with clear market potential. Supported by start-up coaches, participants explored the different phases of founding a business and developed their own concepts. At the end of the week, they pitched their results to the plenary and received valuable feedback. The Start-up Spring School is jointly organized by the Transfer Center enaCom and the Start-up Manufaktur at Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences (H-BRS).

It's hard for founders to get capital, but it's even harder for female founders. According to the German Startup Monitor and the NRW Startup Report 2024, low investment is the biggest hurdle for women when starting a business. This is where the new “Investment SHEroes” program from DIGITALHUB.DE comes in. Cooperation partners include the University of Bonn, Sparkasse KölnBonn, Techniker Krankenkasse, and others. Investment SHEroes runs from May 15 to August 15 and spends 12 weeks preparing female founders to deal with investors. The application deadline is April 20, 2025!

“I would like to say thank you to all women who have the courage to start a business now!” With these words, Mona Neubaur, Minister for Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Protection, and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, opened the Female Founders Venture Summit. Over 200 guests attended the annual event for female founders in North Rhine-Westphalia, which entered its second round in 2025. The highlight was the presentation of the NRW Female Innovation Award 2025, in which the University of Bonn start-up Mangolade secured second place. The summit is organized by Digitalhub in cooperation with the Transfer Center enaCom at the University of Bonn and other regional partners.