Covestro supports Chem Startup Award

New chance for chemistry start-ups: The ChemCologne initiative and numerous industrial companies have presented the Chem Startup Award for the second time at StartupCon in Cologne, Germany. The eleven international finalists prevailed against a number of other teams in advance and have prepared themselves for the big final. In the end, the winner is start-up PolyLabs from Latvia. PolyLabs is a producer of biopolyols. These consist of renewable raw materials such as rapeseed or tall oil. The biobased polyols are produced for the polyurethane industry and can be used for polyurethane system houses, and insulating materials.

Preventive maintenance solution wins Covestro award

This year, Covestro once again supports the initiative of ChemCologne by donating a special award, the participation in the first data science conference of the chemical industry, Chemalytix, which will be held in Leverkusen in December (www.chemalytix.de). „We support the start-up scene in many aspects to further promote innovation and research. The award offers young entrepreneurs the opportunity to present their ideas to established companies in the chemical industry and establish contacts within the sector”, says Dr. Hans Kespohl, Head of Business Model Innovation at Covestro. The Israeli start-up DiagSense convinced with a preventive maintenance solution for production systems and pipelines and wins the special price. Using innovative algorithms, malfunctions in the process industry can be monitored and idle times caused by repairs on pipelines and machines can be avoided.

New impulses for the chemical industry

ChemCologne, StartupCon as well as seven industrial partners and ten network partners enable founders to carry out their ideas during the event. “It was a great format with excellent teams. It’s a way to always find new start-ups that give impulses to our chemical companies in the region,” says Daniel Wauben, Managing Director of ChemCologne.