The “Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs” is an EU-funded exchange program that gives new aspiring and strongly motivated entrepreneurs the chance to enrich their experience, broaden their network and collaborate with successful founders abroad to refine or set up their own business. As a local contact point of the EYE program, UnternehmerTUM actively works on supporting the entrepreneurs from the initial steps until the end of the collaboration.
I learnt that you always have to believe in yourself and build up a great team! - Mario
New Entrepreneur: Mario Becherer (co-founder)
Startup: LARALAB (www.LARALAB.de)
Sector of activity: software solutions for innovative cardiovascular interventions
To enhance security and efficiency in today’s cardiovascular interventions, LARALAB, a MedTech startup, works to assist cardiologists in the procedural planning and pivotal guidance providing software solutions based on artificial intelligence.
Due to the pioneer nature of the business, LARALAB has planned to expand into other countries, starting with Italy.
Hence, Mario Becherer decided to go to Turin to work with Luigi Tealdi, founder of the namesake legal services consultancy office, thus acquiring inside key knowledge of the Italian market and its financial and regulatory characteristics. Moreover, thanks to his Host Entrepreneur’s broad network and hands-on advice, Mario established new valuable business contacts, meeting even new clients.
After this successful three-month exchange, Mario returned to his team in Munich to work on the next step: conquering the CE mark.
I see this program as an adventure, a challenge, but most importantly as a unique chance! - Giacomo
New Entrepreneur: Giacomo Hendel (founder)
Startup: Edley (www.edley.de)
Sector of activity: online courses platform
Starting from the idea that internet users waste a lot of time looking for high-quality, curated information, Giacomo Hendel soon saw the potential of digitizing the field of education generally and decided to set up a high-featured online courses platform.
To further develop his startup, he spend 10 weeks in London working side by side with Charlie Foot, the EdTech experienced founder of Bili, a successful online languages exchange platform for schools.
The collaboration with Bili was perfect for Giacomo’s startup as he got invaluable insights of the market and enlarged his international professional network, fostering future collaboration. In the first weeks of the exchange, he had already surpassed the initial sales goals he set for his startup Edley.
It could have not been better! Find the best exchange partner for your startup and dive in the program at all costs! - Amir
New Entrepreneur: Amir Baradaran (co-founder)
Startup: Foldio
Sector of activity: foldable printed electronics
With the aim of applying technology to education for children, Amirhossein Baradaranshahroudi co-founded Foldio, a startup that creates printable electronics using cutting-edge technology invented at the Saarland University.
Wishing to learn best practices he started his collaboration with Anna Larotska, the founder of Robo Wunderkind, a EdTech company in Vienna that creates modular and programmable robots for children.
During his four-month EYE experience, Amir was impressed by the demanding and challenging tasks a startup has to deal with. What struck him the most was seeing the children’s joy and curiosity when they saw the robots for the first time.
Back to Germany, Amir joined his team at the IT Incubator of the Saarland University to actively work to get new funding grants in order to develop their entrepreneurial project Foldio.
Do it! It is a great experience that enriches not only your entrepreneurial view but your life in general! – Georgi
New Entrepreneur: Georgi Panayotov (co-founder)
Startup: Institute of Creativity and Play
Sector of activity: prototyping workshops for future makers
Georgi Panayotov is a firm believer in the creative power of every human being. That’s why he co-founded the “Institute of Creativity and Play”.
He decided to apply for EYE to scale up his project by working with an already established prototyping studio to gain useful insights. In his active search for a host entrepreneur he met Thomas Diez, director of the FabLab at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, who agreed to host him for a four-month exchange.
There, Georgi had the chance to try and conduct new training formats, and exchange ideas with other educational experts willing to help him and collaborate with his team.
Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs (EYE) is an initiative of the European Commission which connects aspiring and experienced entrepreneurs and brings out the best in their businesses. The role of UnternehmerTUM is making sure that they get together with the most suitable partner, collaborate together and succeed together.
Contact person: Eugenie Wirz, erasmus@unternehmertum.de