Labforward - There is more to Munich than FC Bayern, beer and leather pants

There are many reasons to fall in love with Munich. The Alps that are in the vicinity of the city, the cleanliness of the city (especially compared to Berlin!), the lovely accents and expressions (Servus!), and of course the beer, the Dirndl, and leather trousers. However since June, there is now something else that makes Munich so great…

There is a growing community of LabTech startups building amazing software and hardware. This, combined with the thriving biotech industry that has been developing over the last few decades (mainly around Martinsried and Garching), and the academic community (TU Munich, LMU, and the Max Planck Society) has made Munich a prime spot for innovations in the laboratory field. Therefore, I was thrilled to have been invited to “Tomorrows’s Lab & Startup Date Night” Meetup on June 27th.

How Matthias, co-founder of essentim, introduced the event was truly epic:

“We’re organizing this meetup, and we’re going to call it “lab of tomorrow” because everyone else calls their program, project or event “Lab of the future”. And that just sounds too far away in the distant future.”

Format

The event was very startup-like, with no-frills and no-nonsense. It was quick and dirty, meaning that preparing everything took less than two hours including time to organize the startups. It was an awesome evening full of making new contacts and discovering concrete ideas on how to partner up. This left out the classic pretentiousness found in meetings with more established companies.

• Each company
  • Had it’s own room to showcase their products at the venue shared by essentim and innome
  • Set up a screen to have a small presentation
  • Brought flyers and a roll-up
• Augustiner, Tegernseer, and Gösser Radler was chilled in the fridge for LabTech startups and visiting researchers
• Pizza was served at 7pm
• There was a romantic sunset that could be viewed from a balcony

Meet the innovators of today

Here are some of the innovators of today that I had the pleasure of meeting, who clearly drive the lab of tomorrow:

Until next time…

The startups that presented at the Tomorrow’s Lab & Startup Date Night are only a fraction of the LabTech scene in Munich. There were a number of attendees from the industry and academic research, as well as attendees from established LabTech companies like Waldner, known for their everlasting lab furniture. This gives me hope we’ll see a much wider range of companies at the next event.

I’m sure we’ll manage to organize a Tomorrow’s Lab & Startup Date Night in Berlin in the near future too. Especially since Munich to Berlin is only a smooth four hour ride with ICE! We at labforward hope to get the Isar-Spree-axis going and see some of you for Buletten, Currywurst, and Berliner Pilsner!