Best impact startups for the city of the future honoured with the Future Hamburg Award 2023
Hamburg (Germany), 6 October 2023: The Future Hamburg Award 2023 was presented on 5 October 2023 as part of the EXPLORE 2024 event hosted by Plug and Play Hamburg at the Hammerbrooklyn campus. The winners of Hamburg’s international startup award, which is in its third year, are the startups Colipi (Germany), Make My Day (Israel), and AraBat (Italy). These three impact startups convinced the Future Hamburg Award’s 2023 expert jury with their intelligent solutions for sustainable cities of the future. Young, up-and-coming enterprises from 28 countries had applied for the award.
The Future Hamburg Award 2023 is aimed at honouring pioneering startups whose innovative business models and products have an impact on sustainability and quality of life. The focus here is on innovations that can help improve city life in the realms of greentech, mobility and logistics. The award is bestowed biennially by Hamburg Marketing GmbH.
The three awarded teams will be invited to join a programme by the Hamburg Startup Unit of Hamburg Invest and will be supported in building a high-quality industry network and establishing contacts with investors. The first-place startup, Colipi from Hamburg, will also be able to take part in an international four-week accelerator programme hosted by Plug and Play in Silicon Valley.
The following startups will be able to advance their business model with the support of the Future Hamburg Award 2023:
1st place: Colipi (Germany)
Colipi, a biotech company, transforms renewable carbon sourced from organic byproducts and carbon dioxide into microbial Climate Oil™ – a sustainable alternative to palm oil that can be used in various fields of industry, from cosmetics to bioplastics production. With this highly innovative product, Colipi helps manufacturers meet their corporate net zero goals as the raw material generated by Colipi has an exceptionally low carbon and environmental footprint.
2nd place: Make my Day (Israel)
Electrification is a key aspect of leading both cities and corporations into a sustainable future. With its smart mobility solutions, Make My Day helps companies, fleets and automotive leaders transition to all-green electric vehicles. The product portfolio includes anything from fleet management and optimised route planning tools to an app that predicts battery consumption. Make My Day thus contributes to shaping urban mobility concepts of the future.
3rd place: AraBat (Italy)
Recycling and sustainable management of waste, especially electronic waste, is one of the key challenges industry is facing today. To address this challenge, tech company AraBat develops innovative processes for recycling hazardous waste. The aim is to recover e.g. metals from batteries by leveraging agri-food waste and commercialise the secondary raw materials recovered from these. With their unique approach, the team at AraBat contributes to boosting resource efficiency in industry and systematically advancing the circular economy.
Hamburg & Plug and Play: strong partners for the Future Hamburg Award
Plug and Play, the renowned international innovation platform, is the main partner of the Future Hamburg Award. With a network of more than 60,000 startups and 500 companies, Plug and Play is active in more than 20 industries and over 50 locations worldwide, making it one of the leading international players in the corporate innovation industry.
“We are proud to be able to support the Future Hamburg Award with our international network and thus contribute to shaping Hamburg’s international innovation ecosystem. The award offers the opportunity to share expertise, integrate ecosystems, promote startups and develop long-term strategies for urban living across industries and countries,” says Sallar Faridi, Senior Director at Plug and Play.
The winners were announced and awarded by Hamburg State Secretary Tim Angerer as part of a festive event during the international Plug and Play EXPLORE 2024 on 5 October 2023 in Hamburg.