THe TOP 26 of 2026
For more information and to cast a vote, click your desired startup.
alangu GmbH
Business: IT and communication services
Location: Köln

alangu GmbH
alangu develops an AI-based platform for the automated translation of written and spoken language into German Sign Language (DGS) using digital avatars. The goal is to enable barrier-free communication for deaf and hard-of-hearing people wherever information is currently provided primarily in text- or speech-based form, both digitally and in physical environments.
The core of the business model is a scalable Software-as-a-Service solution. Companies and public institutions integrate alangu’s technology via web interfaces or APIs into existing systems such as websites, customer portals, service terminals, or internal applications. Usage is based on license models, complemented by project-based revenues for setup, customization, system integration, and quality assurance.
Technologically, alangu combines machine learning, linguistic knowledge bases, and multimodal corpus data, developed and validated in close collaboration with deaf experts. A strong focus is placed on quality, transparency, and ethical AI development, including human-in-the-loop approaches and continuous evaluation.
The business model addresses a rapidly growing market at the intersection of digitalization, artificial intelligence, and inclusion. Regulatory requirements for accessibility (e.g. BITV 2.0, BFSG, European Accessibility Act) further increase demand. At the same time, alangu creates social impact by improving digital participation for millions of deaf people and by creating qualified employment opportunities for deaf professionals.
alangu thus combines economic scalability with measurable social value and positions itself as a European technology leader for AI-based sign language solutions.
Community Voting
Arelis AI UG
Business: AI, SaaS, Software / IT
Location: Köln

Arelis AI UG
“Arelis AI develops and operates a cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform for AI integration, governance, risk management, and regulatory compliance. The platform enables organizations to centrally manage, document, and govern their use of artificial intelligence across the entire AI lifecycle—from ideation and development to deployment, operation, and retirement.
The Arelis AI Management System provides structured, end-to-end workflows for AI system registration, risk classification, impact and risk assessments, policy and control management, audit readiness, and continuous compliance monitoring. The platform is aligned with recognized standards such as ISO/IEC 42001 and regulatory frameworks including the EU AI Act. Customers use Arelis AI to gain transparency into AI usage, assign clear accountability, proactively assess and mitigate risks, and generate auditable evidence for regulators, customers, auditors, and internal stakeholders.
Beyond governance and compliance, Arelis AI also offers an AI integration platform that allows organizations to securely integrate proprietary models, open-source models, knowledge bases, and AI agents within a unified, governed environment. Through the Arelis AI Marketplace, organizations can subscribe to pre-built AI agents and deploy them immediately—without development effort, long implementation cycles, or dedicated engineering resources.
The business model is subscription-based, with recurring license fees determined by factors such as the number of AI systems, users, enabled modules, and subscribed AI agents. Enterprise customers may additionally purchase implementation, onboarding, and managed reporting services. Arelis AI does not monetize personal data and does not sell customer data to third parties. All customer data is processed securely within isolated tenant environments and used exclusively for delivering the contracted services.”
Community Voting
ByteIT
Business: AI, Software / IT
Location: Köln

ByteIT
ByteIT is an AI Deep-Tech university spinoff addressing a critical bottleneck in AI customization: loading complex, unstructured documents into Large Language Models (LLMs) with high accuracy. Our solution improves LLM ingestion precision by up to 26% at reducing processing cost of under $0.01 per page. This is achieved through novel vision-model-based document ingestion platform that “gives LLMs glasses” – enabling them to see and interpret dense, visual, or unstructured documents as accurately as a human.
We operate in a fast-growing global market as enterprises race to deploy custom AI solutions. ByteIT aspires to be Europe’s first mover in this space, targeting a €20 billion opportunity in intelligent document processing for AI. U.S.-based peers (e.g. Unstructured, Reducto) demonstrated market traction by reaching seven-figure revenues within one year, validating the demand. ByteIT’s competitive edge lies in our superior precision and ultra-low cost: our benchmarks show order-of-magnitude cost savings and significantly higher extraction precision compared to existing tools. This translates into strong value for customers (better AI outcomes at lower cost) and high-margin scalability for the business.
Community Voting
cinify GmbH
Business: Healthcare, SaaS, Software
Location: Gelsenkirchen

cinify GmbH
cinify empowers medical practices to run their business based on facts, not gut feeling.
We believe doctors are entrepreneurs and medical practices are businesses. Yet, many practices are still managed based on intuition because reliable, consolidated data is missing. Key information is scattered across dozens of disconnected systems – from scheduling and billing to HR, marketing, finance, and operations. Missing interoperability and data silos make it nearly impossible to get a complete and trustworthy view of practice performance.
cinify solves exactly this problem.
cinify is a SaaS platform built specifically for the healthcare sector. We extract, normalize, and connect data from more than 150 systems commonly used in medical practices and MVZs. All relevant KPIs are brought together in one central platform and made accessible through intuitive dashboards and automated reports.
Our solution creates a single source of truth across operations, marketing, HR, customer success, and finance. Practice owners and management teams gain full transparency over utilization, revenue drivers, costs, staffing efficiency, patient flows, and operational bottlenecks – in real time.
On top of this solid data foundation, cinify adds AI-powered features. These enable advanced analyses, automated insights, anomaly detection, and natural language queries. Our vision is to become the “ChatGPT for your own practice” – allowing decision-makers to ask questions in plain language and receive clear, data-backed answers instantly.
With cinify, medical practices move from reactive management to proactive, data-driven leadership – enabling better decisions, higher efficiency, and sustainable growth in an increasingly complex healthcare environment.
Community Voting
Cofinity-X GmbH
Business: Software / IT
Location: Köln

Cofinity-X GmbH
Cofinity‑X brings global industries together and empowers sovereign data exchange. Our business model is structured across three layers that build upon each other and enable diverse monetization streams:
Core Business forms the foundation. This includes our Core Services, Portal & Marketplace, built on three pillars: Identity Management for secure organizational identification, a Wallet Provider for digital credentials and access, and Core Services A & B as the technological backbone. This infrastructure is monetized through Yearly Recurring Dataspace License & Usage Fees, creating a stable revenue stream.
Building on this foundation, Enabling Services constitute the second layer. This comprises Onboarding Support and Use Case Consulting, which support organizations in connecting to the ecosystem and identifying suitable applications within their business models, as well as Software Development as another building block. Revenue flows through Consulting & Implementation Fees and Order Software Development.
Value Applications form the third layer and are based on Business Partner Data Management, the Connector Application, and the Traceability Application. They translate interoperable data exchange into measurable outcomes, creating recurring customer value at scale. Monetization occurs via Recurring Software Subscription Fees.
This three‑layer business model architecture diversifies revenue across recurring infrastructure fees, professional services, and application subscriptions. Each layer reinforces the others and enables sustainable growth.
Community Voting
Credular GmbH
Business: B2B SaaS, Software
Location: Bielefeld

Credular GmbH
Credular is a B2B SaaS company focused on industrial service and maintenance organizations in manufacturing and plant engineering. Our digital business model is based on automating documentation and transforming operational execution into structured, reusable knowledge.
In industrial environments, documentation is often manual, inconsistent, and detached from the actual workflow. This results in inefficiencies, knowledge loss, and high service costs. Credular embeds digital guidance directly into daily operations. Technicians execute tasks through structured workflows, and documentation is automatically generated as a by-product of execution. Data, media, and inputs are captured in real time and converted into standardized knowledge assets.
The value creation mechanism is data-driven: the more workflows are executed, the more structured operational data is generated. This continuously improves documentation quality, process transparency, and service performance. AI supports structuring, searchability, translation, and optimization of knowledge at scale.
Credular’s model is inherently scalable: once workflows are digitized, they can be replicated globally with minimal marginal cost. By turning operational execution into automated documentation and structured knowledge, Credular becomes the digital backbone of industrial service organizations.
Community Voting
foresAIght.ai GmbH
Business: Logistics, supply chain
Location: Köln

foresAIght.ai GmbH
* Why – The Problem We Refuse to Accept
European SMEs operate in increasingly volatile markets, yet many still rely on Excel spreadsheets and gut feeling to forecast demand. Inaccurate planning leads to excess inventory, stock-outs, and wasted capital. We refuse to accept that advanced forecasting should be reserved for large corporations.
* What – Accurate Forecasts Without Complexity
foresAIght delivers highly accurate, product-level demand forecasts on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Companies receive regularly updated forecasts that directly support production, procurement, and inventory planning, without requiring changes to existing systems or operational processes.
* How – The Technology That Makes It Possible
We combine proprietary meta-learning architecture with more than 1,500 external demand drivers, including weather data, macroeconomic indicators, and sector-specific trends. For each SKU, the system dynamically selects the best-performing model and continuously adapts to changing demand patterns.
* Who – The Companies We Build For
We focus on manufacturing and retail SMEs with complex product portfolios, high SKU counts, and volatile demand, where forecasting precision directly impacts profitability and resilience.
* Who Part II – The Humans Behind the AI
We are three co-founders with backgrounds in applied AI, software engineering, strategy, and large-scale technology transformation. Together, we combine deep technical expertise with entrepreneurial execution to build the human intelligence behind the AI forecasts.
+ Bonus Track / Recognitions
Winner of WECONOMY 2025/26 by Handelsblatt and UnternehmerTUM, awarded the EXIST Research Transfer program, selected as a Top 10 start-up in the EIT Supernovas Rocket Up program, and invited to present at leading European supply chain and AI events.
Community Voting
GenerIO GmbH
Business: eCommerce, Software / IT
Location: Essen

GenerIO GmbH
GENERIO entwickelt eine skalierbare 3D-Infrastruktur für den E-Commerce. Unsere KI wandelt bestehende Produktfotos automatisiert in produktionsreife, AR-fähige 3D-Modelle um – in Sekunden statt Wochen. Damit lösen wir das zentrale Skalierungsproblem im 3D-Commerce: die wirtschaftliche Erstellung tausender 3D-Assets pro SKU.
Unser Kernprodukt ist eine Integration-ready 3D-API für Enterprise-Kunden. Sie ermöglicht es Handelsunternehmen und Plattformen, ihre gesamten Produktkataloge automatisiert in 3D zu überführen und direkt in bestehende Shopsysteme, AR-Viewer oder digitale Showrooms zu integrieren. Das steigert Conversion-Raten, reduziert Retouren und verbessert operative Effizienz.
Wir verfolgen ein B2B-Enterprise-Modell mit wiederkehrenden Lizenz- und Infrastrukturgebühren. Typische Vertragsvolumina liegen im Bereich von €100.000+ pro Jahr. Ergänzend bieten wir On-Premise-Deployments für IP-sensitive Kunden sowie individuelle Workflow-Integrationen an.
Unsere Wertschöpfung basiert auf einer eigenen KI-Pipeline – kein API-Wrapper. Das sichert Datenhoheit, DSGVO-Konformität und technologische Unabhängigkeit. Ziel ist es, 3D nicht als Marketing-Feature, sondern als skalierbare Infrastruktur für den Spatial Commerce zu etablieren.
GENERIO schafft die technologische Grundlage, um 3D-Produktvisualisierung wirtschaftlich skalierbar und damit zum neuen Standard im E-Commerce zu machen.
Community Voting
go AVA GmbH
Business: Software / IT
Location: Essen

go AVA GmbH
go AVA is revolutionizing B2B and B2B2C communication with lifelike AI avatars that interact in real time in over 100 languages. We address the most pressing challenge facing the modern economy: rising labor costs coupled with growing demand for accessible, multilingual support around the clock. Where traditional chatbots fail due to a lack of empathy and dangerous AI hallucinations, our “out-of-the-box” approach offers a scalable, human solution.
Our sustainable, hybrid SaaS business model is designed for profitability and enterprise-level scaling. Value capture occurs in two stages:
Setup (One-time CapEx): Customers pay for custom avatar production (including video filming) and the computationally intensive training of a closed LLM based on their verified company data.
Interaction (SaaS/OpEx): Actual usage is billed via a recurring, usage-based license.
Additional add-ons (such as the patented “Instant Language Switch”) and our vertical product “goEducation,” which fully automates the transformation of static corporate knowledge into interactive e-learning courses with avatar narration, drive our lucrative land-and-expand strategy.
Our strongest USP is uncompromising data sovereignty “Made in Europe.” Our proprietary tech stack is hosted exclusively in the EU (Open Telekom Cloud). This means 100% compliance with the GDPR and the EU AI Act. We operate completely independent of US or Chinese technologies.
With an MVP implementation in under 4 weeks, we guarantee enterprise customers a rapid return on investment. Renowned reference customers such as Techniker Krankenkasse (with the “sayHELLO” project), Deutsche Telekom (“goCoach”), and REWE Digital impressively validate our product-market fit.
go AVA scales empathy.
Community Voting
hellgrün Energie GmbH
Business: Renewable Power Supply
Location: Köln

hellgrün Energie GmbH
hellgrün Energie GmbH turns underused commercial rooftops into long-term clean-energy assets through a digitally orchestrated “Energy-as-a-Service” model in NRW and beyond. Instead of selling PV hardware, we operate an end-to-end platform that connects three parties: (1) property owners who want to solarize their buildings/portfolios without capex or operational burden, (2) on-site business tenants who buy locally produced green electricity at stable, competitive prices, and (3) private investors who finance the installations and own the assets.
Our digital operating system is the scalability engine: a unified data model and workflow backbone that standardizes site qualification, project structuring, contracting, and partner coordination from rooftop acquisition to commissioning. In operations, we run continuous performance monitoring, automated ticketing and partner dispatch, billing for on-site power sales, and transparent investor reporting – combining best-of-breed vendor software with our own process automation and data hub. This enables lean management of hundreds of assets without linear headcount growth.
The business model is asset-light and recurring: we develop projects to “ready-to-build”, sell them to investors, and remain the long-term technical and commercial operator for 20+ years. Each new rooftop increases assets-under-management and compounds predictable management revenues, while local PPAs increase value by maximizing on-site consumption.
Traction: since launch (Q2 ’24) we have sold €5.9m in assets, achieved 300% YoY growth, and secured €1.6m in long-term recurring revenue (over 30 years).
In short: hellgrün is the digital layer that removes cost and complexity from commercial rooftop solar – unlocking private capital, accelerating decarbonization, and making local clean energy the obvious choice for every business.
Community Voting
HzE Portal
Business: Software / IT
Location: Leverkusen

HzE Portal
In Germany’s youth welfare system, finding a placement for a child in need is still a manual marathon. While logistics companies track packages in milliseconds, youth welfare offices (Jugendämter) are forced to call down excel or even handwritten lists when searching for a placement. Social workers lose thousands of pedagogical hours to administrative friction. In governmental interventions every day counts—but the current system is stuck in the 20th century, managing a €19.6 billion sector (HzE) with analog tools.
Our Solution: The Digital Operating System for Youth Welfare
The HzE-Portal is the central, data-driven matching and communication platform for public authorities and youth welfare service providers (care facilities). We have built the digital bridge for the entire placement process—from instant capacity checks and precision-matching to secure, end-to-end communication. By providing a “single source of truth,” we eliminate information gaps and replace chaotic email chains and phone tags with a streamlined, digital workflow.
Community Voting
inframind GmbH
Business: AI, Energy and Industry
Location: Aachen

inframind GmbH
inframind develops a sovereign, AI-native operating system for Europe’s energy infrastructure. Distribution system operators and utilities manage hundreds of fragmented data sources across SCADA, GIS, ERP and metering systems. This historically grown IT landscape prevents automation, slows down grid expansion and creates structural inefficiencies. inframind OS integrates, harmonizes and validates these heterogeneous data streams into a synchronized, versioned single source of truth, operated alongside existing systems, not replacing them.
On this unified, versioned data foundation, inframind provides a modular intelligence layer consisting of ontology-driven data modeling, governed AI integration, and application modules for grid intelligence, business analytics, and agent-based automation, enabling automated grid planning, resilience analysis, investment decision support, and end-to-end operational workflows. By reducing up to 90% of manual data reconciliation and coordination effort, inframind significantly accelerates planning and operational processes, ensuring that grid expansion and the energy transition are not delayed by slow, fragmented IT workflows.
Our business model is SaaS combined with forward-deployed engineering: we connect to legacy environments within weeks, implement high-impact use cases, and scale step-by-step across departments. Customers pay annual licenses for the inframind OS and additional modules, plus implementation and customization services.
Digital sovereignty is a core principle. All deployments can run on European cloud infrastructure or on-premise, ensuring data ownership, regulatory compliance and independence from non-European AI companies. inframind provides the data and AI layer that enables utilities to remain in control of their infrastructure while unlocking automation at scale.
By turning fragmented grid data into actionable intelligence, we transform energy infrastructure into a data-driven, automated and future-proof system.
Community Voting
kaarlo health GmbH
Business: Healthcare
Location: Essen

kaarlo health GmbH
kaarlo addresses one of primary care’s largest unmet needs: psychosomatic (F45) disorders. Up to 25% of GP consultations are driven by psychosomatic complaints, yet 60% of patients remain untreated due to limited time, complex care pathways, and insufficient reimbursement. As a result, patients cycle through repeated consultations and avoidable diagnostics, creating high costs and system inefficiencies.
Our digital business model is based on a scalable, prescription-ready self-therapy platform. After medical diagnosis, patients can immediately start treatment within the kaarlo app. The platform delivers over 30 hours of structured, evidence-based therapy content through more than 65,000 personalized treatment pathways. Interactive, multimedia modules ensure high engagement and adherence. To enhance safety and outcomes, patients can access on-demand psychological support via kaarloDoc.
kaarlo generates revenue through a per-patient reimbursement model, including initial prescriptions and follow-on prescriptions. At an estimated €200 per patient (excl. VAT), our solution costs approximately 10% of comparable outpatient short-term psychotherapy (12 sessions), offering strong economic value for payers and providers.
Community Voting
Nulara GbR
Business: AI, Software
Location: Dortmund

Nulara GbR
“Nulara is a digital platform that centers on Digital Product Passports (DPPs), enabling companies to make their products transparent, secure, and trustworthy. With AI-assisted DPPs, businesses can quickly upload product data and automatically generate verifiable, tamper-proof passports. This eliminates much of the time-consuming and error-prone work of manual data management while ensuring all information is accurate, up-to-date, and easy to access.
Each DPP contains comprehensive information about the product, including its origin, materials, manufacturing processes, and sustainability credentials. Sensitive data is processed in secure Data Clean Rooms, allowing companies to share and analyze information without exposing private details. This ensures that product information remains confidential, compliant, and protected at all times.
A Human-in-the-Loop approach further enhances reliability by reviewing and validating key data points. This combination of AI automation, human oversight, and secure data handling ensures that even complex or unique product information is precise and trustworthy. Companies can generate DPPs quickly while maintaining the highest standards of accuracy and compliance.
By focusing on DPPs, Nulara helps businesses provide clear, reliable, and actionable product information to customers, partners, and regulators. The platform is scalable, user-friendly, and adaptable across industries, transforming product transparency into a strategic advantage. With fast generation, secure handling, and verified accuracy, Nulara turns digital product passports into a central tool for trust, compliance, and operational efficiency.”
Community Voting
Ole KG
Business: Construction
Location: Bielefeld

Ole KG
Ole is the intelligent AI platform for the skilled trades. We create digital tools for the core processes of the energy transition: installations, maintenance, and repairs. Based on real-world expertise and cutting-edge technology, all bundled into a single app. In doing so, we are addressing one of Germany’s last major, structurally under-digitized B2B markets. This is because the skilled trades sector faces a real dilemma: Driven by the energy transition and building renovations, demand is growing, while complexity is increasing significantly due to new product technologies and digital connectivity. At the same time, experiential knowledge is dwindling due to a shortage of skilled workers and demographic change. Digital competitors like Thermondo or 1KOMMA5° are ramping up the pressure. Businesses are losing margins and competitiveness—not because of a lack of orders, but because they lack the right tools. Technology can help, but only if it is combined with genuine expertise and made simple enough to be truly effective on the job site. That is exactly what Ole is: The platform combines deep industry knowledge with modern AI technology to create concrete solutions for everyday work. Ole provides the answer, identifies the replacement part, guides users through maintenance, and triggers the order. This standardizes processes, democratizes knowledge, and makes businesses competitive. The revenue model is two-sided: Ole is offered to the trades as a SaaS model, tiered by company size. Scaling occurs through transaction-based revenue from material procurement via connected wholesale partners or other service providers. The current target market in the DACH region comprises nearly 100,000 HVAC and electrical companies. The IT architecture behind Ole enables both continuous expansion into new digital solutions within the vertical market and rapid adaptation to adjacent trades, thereby allowing the market potential to be gradually increased.
Community Voting
OSPHIM GmbH
Business: Software / IT
Location: Aachen

OSPHIM GmbH
OSPHIM is a digital AI-powered ecosystem that enables plastics manufacturers to optimize production processes through intelligent data analysis and automation.
Our business model is based on a scalable Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform that connects directly to existing manufacturing equipment without requiring hardware replacement. OSPHIM combines simulation knowledge, historical production data, and real-time machine signals using transfer learning to generate optimization recommendations even with minimal data availability. This allows manufacturers to improve efficiency (>70%), stabilize quality, and reduce waste (>50%) within hours rather than months. Customers access the OSPHIM App via a web interface, providing real-time process insights, AI-driven parameter optimization, and intuitive decision support for operators and engineers.
Revenue is generated through annual or monthly software licenses per machine. By reducing setup times, scrap rates, energy consumption, and enabling the reliable use of recycled materials, OSPHIM creates measurable economic and environmental value. The platform democratizes access to industrial AI, making advanced manufacturing intelligence accessible not only to large corporations but also to small and medium-sized enterprises worldwide.
Community Voting
Proofa
Business: Legal Tech
Location: Ahlen

Proofa
Proofa is a multi-layer verification platform designed to establish the “trust layer” for the digital economy. In an era dominated by generative AI, Proofa enables creators to prove the authenticity, human origin, and ownership of their intellectual property through advanced cryptographic and AI-driven methods.
Proofa transforms traditional copyright from a static legal concept into a dynamic, future-proof digital asset. We provide creators with the tools to defend their value in an AI-driven world.
Community Voting
SaniUp GmbH
Business: Healthcare, Software / IT
Location: Münster

SaniUp GmbH
Medical supply stores in Germany have a billing problem that nobody talks about: over 5,000 insurer contracts create a labyrinth of pricing rules that back-office staff navigates by hand, every day, for every patient. The tools they use? Excel, experience, and hope. When the one person who understands the contracts leaves, billing stops – and with it, cash flow.
SaniUp replaces that entire process with software. We scan prescriptions, resolve the correct contract pathway in real time, generate cost estimates, bill insurers, and collect patient co-payments – automatically. The only human step left is choosing the right product for the patient. That’s where medical expertise belongs.
What makes our model unique: we only earn money when our customers get paid. No setup fees, no licenses – just a share of successful reimbursements. This means we sit in the same boat as the providers we serve. If billing fails, we fail. So we built a system where it doesn’t.
The result is better healthcare delivery. When stores spend less time fighting bureaucracy, they spend more time on what matters: fitting patients with the right medical devices, faster. Fewer errors mean fewer delays. Fewer delays mean better patient outcomes.
Community Voting
SBG Serious Business Gaming GmbH
Business: SaaS
Location: Düsseldorf

SBG Serious Business Gaming GmbH
With “What the Hack!”, Düsseldorf-based SBG tackles the biggest security risk of digital transformation: the human factor. Over 80% of cyberattacks stem from human error. Traditional e-learning programs fail due to low acceptance and a lack of application in everyday life. “What the Hack!” solves this problem through a highly collaborative serious game ecosystem that instills cyber resilience in a playful and sustainable way.
At its core is a proprietary, cloud-based game engine that translates complex threat scenarios (social engineering, phishing, AI manipulation) into interactive team challenges.
Dual learning approach: The model combines an immersive gaming experience for participants with a data-driven dashboard for companies and organizations.
Community Voting
SLAPStack
Business: Logistics, supply chain
Location: Dortmund

SLAPStack
Warehouses are under increasing pressure: skilled labor shortages, rising operational costs, growing complexity, and limited real-time transparency of inventory and material flows. Manual forklift operations and blind spots often lead to avoidable accidents, disruptions, and financial losses. At the same time, many facilities still rely on fragmented IT systems and static, non-adaptive control logic, making operations inefficient, reactive, and difficult to scale.
SLAPStack addresses this gap with an AI-powered warehouse operating system, enabling real-time decisions and continuous optimization for both robotic and manually operated forklifts. The platform integrates warehouse management, fleet control, and real-time simulation into one unified system.
Community Voting
Tentris GmbH
Business: B2B SaaS, Software
Location: Herford

Tentris GmbH
“Tentris is the first truly scalable RDF graph database management system designed to deliver real-time insights from distributed data sources. Unlike conventional solutions that struggle with complex queries, write performance, and integration overhead, Tentris automates data integration and scales seamlessly across environments. This empowers data scientists to eliminate repetitive, time-consuming tasks and access insights in seconds.
Our advanced data structure and high-performance query engine enable queries up to 100 times faster while reducing data processing costs by as much as 90 percent. Tentris uniquely combines the storage efficiency of disk-based systems with the speed of in-memory databases, delivering both performance and cost-effectiveness at scale.
Organizations using Tentris significantly reduce infrastructure costs while enabling large-scale AI and graph analytics without trade-offs. By removing the limitations of traditional data systems, Tentris becomes a core building block for intelligent, future-ready data architectures.
Our vision is to build the core infrastructure for the data-driven world of tomorrow, where analytics begins with understanding instead of data preparation, and legacy data lakes and warehouses are no longer required.”
Community Voting
Userflix UG
Business: Market Research
Location: Zülpich

Userflix UG
Userflix is revolutionizing market research with the world’s first voice AI platform for scalable qualitative interviews. We’ve solved the fundamental bottleneck that has prevented qualitative research from scaling: the need for trained human interviewers.
The Problem:
Qualitative research (interviews, focus groups) delivers deep customer insights but costs €300+ per interview and takes weeks to execute. Market research agencies must reject profitable projects due to interviewer capacity constraints. Companies make product decisions with insufficient qualitative data.
Our Solution:
AI-conducted voice-to-voice interviews that achieve human interviewer quality from €0.60/minute (90% cost reduction). Our Conversational AI conducts empathetic, contextual deep-dive interviews with adaptive follow-up questions—not rigid chatbots or surveys.
Community Voting
VisaFlow GmbH
Business: HR
Location: Köln

VisaFlow GmbH
VisaFlow is a scalable, app-based platform that digitizes and simplifies legal migration processes for international talent and German organizations.
Our platform operates as a multi-sided business model:
On the B2C side, international students, expats, and skilled professionals receive step-by-step visa guidance, personalized document checklists, progress tracking, and access to complementary relocation services. Users can choose from tiered service packages.
On the B2B side, German universities and companies use an extended VisaFlow management infrastructure to efficiently support and manage their international talent. Institutions benefit from standardized processes, higher application success rates, and significantly reduced administrative workload. Revenue is generated through corporate packages and service agreements.
Additionally, VisaFlow has built a strategic partner service network (e.g., insurance, banking, housing, language courses), creating a true one-stop solution for users while generating complementary revenue streams through partnerships and referrals.
By combining technology, personalization, and ecosystem partnerships, VisaFlow is building the digital infrastructure for efficient, transparent, and scalable global talent mobility.
Community Voting
VitrofluidiX
Business: MedTech
Location: Köln

VitrofluidiX
VitrofluidiX develops VitroFlow, a simple and versatile organ-on-a-chip (OoC) system that enables the simulation of human organ functions under physiologically relevant conditions. This is achieved by creating a controlled, organ-like environment for human cells directly within the device, without the need for additional laboratory equipment. As a result, cells behave more realistically, enabling more predictive drug testing, improved disease research, and a reduction of animal testing in the long term.
The device is complemented by VitroFlow.Connect, a cloud-based software application that enables automated live imaging and continuous monitoring of experimental parameters via a camera connected to any standard laboratory microscope. The software allows users to remotely observe experiments, record sensor data, and document workflows in a structured and reproducible manner.
VitrofluidiX follows a hybrid business model: the VitroFlow hardware is commercialized through direct sales or leasing, while the digital software component is offered via a subscription-based subscription model that provides ongoing monitoring, documentation, and analysis functionalities. Beyond individual product sales, VitrofluidiX pursues a long-term platform strategy in which VitroFlow serves as a standardized technological foundation for organ-on-a-chip research. Through its open and chip-agnostic design, the system enables the integration of chips, cell models, and modules from external partners. This approach is supported by ongoing collaborations with leading universities, research institutions, and established chip manufacturers, allowing VitrofluidiX to continuously expand the range of compatible models and applications while maintaining a robust and reproducible core system.
Community Voting
Vivam GmbH
Business: AI, Healthcare
Location: Aachen

Vivam GmbH
Millions of people in Germany wait 6 months for therapy while their mental health deteriorates. Meanwhile, therapists drown in paperwork. And here’s the catch: building truly effective AI therapy is impossible because nobody has access to real therapeutic conversations – patient privacy makes it legally and ethically impossible.
Until now.
Our Breakthrough: VIVAM has solved the unsolvable: we’re building AI therapists trained on real therapy sessions without ever touching patient data. This is data nobody else on the planet can access – and it’s our unfair advantage.
How We Do It: AIDEN GUIDE is our strategic foundation. We offer therapists an AI documentation assistant that runs entirely on local devices – it transcribes sessions and writes clinical notes locally. Therapists love it because it saves them hours weekly. But the innovation goes deeper: while processing sessions locally, it learns therapeutic patterns through federated learning and LoRA-based adaptation.
Only metadata – anonymized patterns about what therapeutic interventions work – flows back to improve our central model. No patient names, no session content, no privacy violations. Just pure therapeutic intelligence extracted from thousands of real therapy sessions.
The Result: AIDEN CHAT – AI therapy companions that work because they’re trained on how real therapy actually works. Not built on internet text or theoretical protocols, but on validated therapeutic interactions. Each AI companion specializes in specific conditions (anxiety, ADHD, depression) and delivers genuine cognitive behavioral therapy through natural conversations.
Why This Changes Everything: Every competitor faces the same wall: they can’t train on real therapy because of privacy laws. They’re stuck with generic AI or rigid protocols. We’ve cracked the code. As more therapists use GUIDE, our models get smarter. Every session makes our AI companions better – a flywheel nobody else can replicate.
The Vision: We’re not just building therapy apps. We’re creating the foundation model for psychotherapy itself – trained on real clinical practice, respecting privacy, serving millions across Europe.”
Community Voting
VPATH AI GmbH
Business: Industrial Automation & AI
Location: Münster

VPATH AI GmbH
VPATH AI GmbH is a B2B SaaS platform that enables industrial companies to deploy AI in engineering securely and at scale—from agricultural machinery and automotive to robotics and medical technology. Instead of isolated AI experiments, we provide an Engineering Intelligence Platform that integrates source code, documents, and schematics into a unified product knowledge graph and runs specialized AI agents on it; as a result, specifications, safety certifications, and test concepts are no longer created through weeks of manual documentation work, but rather in just a few days—in a traceable and auditable manner.
We generate revenue through recurring platform licenses and implementation packages; VPATH AI can be operated as a managed SaaS or on-premise solution with full data sovereignty, supplemented by integration and engineering services that quickly bring AI workflows into production on real machines. In many development departments today, around 80% of engineering time is spent on documentation, coordination, and troubleshooting, while a defect discovered late in the process, shortly before series production begins, can easily cost millions. VPATH AI significantly shifts this balance: Our customers save several hundred thousand euros per year per development area, while licensing costs account for only a fraction of that, and the investment often pays for itself after just the first few avoided misdecisions.
Since August 2025, we have been generating revenue with pilot customers such as CLAAS, a leading global manufacturer of harvesting machines; an expanded collaboration runs through October 2026, and by the end of 2026, we aim to have 3–5 paying corporate customers with annual recurring revenue in the mid-six-figure range. Our vision: In a future where connected, humanoid robots and autonomous machines work in fields, on roads, and in operating rooms, VPATH AI provides the nervous system for their development, ensuring that safety, transparency, and trust are built in from the very beginning.





