Pitch & Match with ARGE Wirtschaftsregion Donaustädte 2023

Regensburg, 28.11.2023 - When companies and start-ups meet to talk about collaborations, it can only be Pitch & Match. Numerous participants met last Tuesday for the online matching event, where companies and start-ups swap roles for a short time. The sixth edition was attended by Sonplas GmbH, Strama-MPS Maschinenbau GmbH & Co. KG, TGW Logistics Group and Netto Marken-Discount Stiftung & Co. KG and presented a total of seven exciting challenges to which start-ups could apply.

Over twenty start-upsfrom all over Germany applied for the challenges, which ranged from the development of sustainable stores and AI integration in special machine construction to the creation of an internal AI knowledge database and error reduction in warehouse picking. The challenges not only reflected the companies' current concerns, but also illustrated the great innovative spirit of the industry, which is where Pitch & Match comes in. By cooperating with young start-ups, companies are actively driving forward new developments. 

In his keynote speech, Lamin Ben-Hamdane, Head of Startup Cooperations at Infineon Technologies AG, explained what such collaborations can look like. He spoke about successful collaborations between corporates and start-ups using the example of Infineon Technologies AG. The company's motivation is clearly defined: active participation in pioneering technologies and the search for the next big technology player.
To this end, the company monitors the start-up ecosystem and keeps an eye out for promising developments. After all, some of the most important innovations of our time have come from start-ups, be it in the field of CPUs from Intel, IP routers from Cisco or electric vehicles from Tesla.

After these interesting insights, the companies launched straight into their three-minute pitches in order to present the challenges live to the start-ups and the audience and thus be well prepared for the 1:1 talks. Almost twenty 1:1 meetings were scheduled for the companies and were used by the start-ups to specify potential cooperation opportunities and clarify the exact procedure. 

We would like to thank everyone involved for a successful event!

Pitch & Match is a cooperation event of the Digital Start-up Initiative Upper Palatinate together with the ARGE Wirtschaftsregion Donaustädte, the Cluster Mobility & Logistics and receives co-financing from the EU as part of the EU project "Digital Innovation Ostbayern".