Technical University of Denmark: Startup Day Celebrates DTU’s Thriving Innovation Environment

In the large auditorium in DTU Skylab on Lyngby Campus, several of the budding entrepreneurs are ready to go at their respective stands. Soon, they will present their start-up to the approximately 700 visitors, which include potential mentors and investors. On the main stage at the end of the room, DTU President Anders Bjarklev opens this year’s DTU Startup Day.

During the day, several of the 71 start-ups will make their pitch from the main stage, taking turns in the spotlight in front of the many attendees. All start-ups are affiliated with DTU, either through a co-founder from DTU or as part of a DTU programme.

“The day gives start-ups a unique opportunity to network with researchers, industry experts, mentors, investors, and other start-ups,” says Marianne Thellersen, Director for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Senior Vice President at DTU.

In between pitches, a selected panel debates innovation and the important connection between entrepreneurship and societal challenges. Among the panellists are Connie Hedegaard, former EU Commissioner and former chairman of the Concito think tank, and Troels Schönfeldt, cofounder and chairman of Seaborg Technology.

An ecosystem leaving room for failure

“DTU Startup Day is a high-priority event at DTU. It’s a day when we bring together our entire innovation ecosystem to support knowledge-intensive start-ups. At the same time, we celebrate how far we have come. The greatest strength of our innovation ecosystem is that everyone who wants to contribute to our start-up environment is welcome—and, fortunately, there are many who want to,” says Marianne Thellersen.

The many start-ups are offered entrepreneurship consulting. Should an idea fail, DTU’s innovation programmes can help them develop ideas further, so the technology may benefit in a new direction.

An example of a start-up that had to change course is Defudger, which former DTU student Dominik Mate Kovacs started together with a CBS student. They had developed a technology that can detect deep fakes, but it turned out that the market was not big enough for the technology at the time. So the entrepreneurs changed their name to Colossyan—a platform that uses AI to create educational material for companies. Last month, Dominik Mate Kovacs made the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the technology category.

Women’s health and green solutions in focus

At a stand in the Developer Hall, we find the entrepreneurs behind the start-up Uvisa. The company has a goal of creating sufficient awareness of the health challenges that only affect a woman’s body, and which are often taboo. So far, the focus is on vaginal discomfort caused by common infections that affect millions of women. Many bacteria have become resistant to antibiotic treatments, which is why Uvisa is developing a drug-free treatment that uses light to both simplify the process and eliminate the harmful microbes.

At another stand, we find Paint’R, which is developing an alternative to the traditional paint can. Their product contains 75 per cent less plastic than the current ones. This means that they can reduce CO2e emissions compared to the traditional paint cans by 62 per cent.

“We’ve been here a few times before and it’s been really beneficial. We have talked to people from the paint industry who would like to sit on an advisory board. It can be a bit difficult to find the right contacts yourself, so the day is a good opportunity to meet people face to face,” says Victoria Strauss Søgaard, COO of Paint’R.