IFA23 - A Recap 🚀

Frankfurt am Main. On March 16, 2023, the first award ceremony of the International Founders Awards (IFA) took place at the TechQuartier in Frankfurt.

In the USA, international founders have built up a large number of impressive companies over the past decades.

More than half of the unicorns in the US were founded or co-founded by immigrants. In Germany, however, the situation is quite different. The Migrant Founders Monitor from the Startup-Verband shows that in Germany, one in three migrant founders have to contend with prejudice on account of their own origins - the focus here is on contact with authorities, government offices and banks.

In order to make innovations of foreign founders in Germany more visible, we have created the IFA. After a successful application phase with founders from 23 different nations, 10 startups were selected for a bootcamp with experts from the startup scene. The finalists, who come from Italy, Morocco, India, Serbia, Hong Kong, France and Peru, met in Frankfurt to face the final pitch. After the welcoming speeches by Dr. Sebastian Schäfer, Managing Director of the TechQuartier and Dr. Rainer Waldschmidt, Managing Director of the HTAI, moderator Sally Schulze opened the event.

Each startup had 3 minutes to present their business idea. After the pitches, the audience together with the jury chose the three winners:

The coveted first place went to the startup "Anymate Me", a synthetic video startup that offers an innovative and scalable alternative to the traditional video production. Using "Anymate Studio," an AI-based video production platform, enterprise videos can be created using photorealistic avatars in more than 60 languages through text input. Use cases range from marketing and sales videos to training and onboarding videos to FAQ videos and tutorials. Ms. Hilime Arslaner, Head of the City Council of the City of Frankfurt am Main congratulated the team and presented the prize.

Second place went to the StartUp "reLi“. The founding team from Italy and India has set itself the task of making batteries smarter and more sustainable with the help of an innovative technology. Jury member Dr. Rainer Waldschmidt introduced the team and wished them great success in the further development of the company in Hesse.

Third place went to the „BuddyApp“. Its goal is to promote physical activity as a supportive therapy for depression into daily practice. Christian Jakob, initiator of Frankfurt Forward, presented the award.

The two other finalists were Waanda and Volektra.

The International Founders Award is only the beginning. In the medium and long term, further measures are planned to promote a welcoming culture, to make Germany as a business location even more attractive for internationals, emphasizes Andres Felipe Macias, initiator of the award and founder of Wide Thinkers.