A support package tailored to individual needs - this is the concept behind the "Startup.Starterkit.MG" scholarship, with which the City of Mönchengladbach, WFMG - Wirtschaftsförderung Mönchengladbach GmbH, Marketing Gesellschaft Mönchengladbach mbH (MGMG), the start-up initiative nextMG e.V. and other partners want to give selected start-ups a decisive development boost. In the case of Leon Blanckart, who is now the new scholarship student for textile technology, the concept can take full effect: The 27-year-old is still working with project partners, but without potential co-founders. The Hochschule Niederrhein's "Textile Products" Master's graduate is supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), but it has not yet been clearly defined which concrete, marketable product could be at the end of the development. And his "AlgaTex" project is currently still research-intensive, while the actual founding of a start-up and the development of the skills required for this will still take some time. These are all steps that can now be tackled with external support over the course of the funded year.

Blanckart's approach: he wants to show that textile production can be done in a completely different way. He wants to move away from plastic fibres, which are suspected of flushing microplastics into the sea, and from cotton, which consumes too much water and uses enormous amounts of pesticides and fertilizers to grow in monocultures. "That's how I came up with algae as an alternative raw material for fibers," says the 27-year-old, whose Bachelor's thesis was the first to explore whether textiles could be produced from aquatic biomass in the future and for which he received three major awards. "On the scientific side of the project, I see myself in a good position," says the Mönchengladbach native, who is working on AlgaTex at the university in a part-time position funded by the BMBF. "I'm hoping that the new scholarship will give me a boost in terms of finding co-founders, but I'm also looking forward to the mentoring from the experts at nextMG and the experience and expertise in the start-up process behind it, for example." Potential co-founders do not necessarily have to have a background in textiles or biology - but they should be enthusiastic about the project and the sustainable approach behind it and ideally have knowledge in areas such as business administration or marketing.

The "Startup.Starterkit.MG" is intended to simplify this search, as it goes without saying that the workstations provided free of charge also apply to the co-founders yet to be found. "We are providing a section of our 'start-up meadow', the new start-up space at MGMG on Steinmetzstraße, for the future start-up team," says Friedhelm Lange, joint Managing Director of MGMG and WFMG. The same applies to mentoring by nextMG. "Initial meetings with our founding board member Maximilian Reisch and myself as chairman have already taken place. We are delighted to be able to contribute our expertise and our network to hopefully help AlgaTex cross the next development threshold," says Sebastian Leppert from nextMG. Stadtsparkasse provides free "S-Starthilfe" current accounts and, if required, other free additional services such as business cards, banking software or a business plan check-up. Gladbacher Hockey- und Tennisclub e.V. (GHTC) provides free annual memberships, while the WFMG makes its network available and builds bridges to companies that could be potential sparring or cooperation partners. Leon Blanckart also receives support with his rent.

In addition to the cooperation of the various partners, the scholarship is made possible not least by financial support from the City of Mönchengladbach. "In recent months, we have once again been impressively shown the immense potential for start-ups, innovation development and thus the sustainable transformation of the business location of the Faculty of Textile and Clothing Technology at Hochschule Niederrhein," says Lord Mayor Felix Heinrichs. A good example of this is the start-up Octo, which recently received federal funding of 1.84 million euros for the idea of a water-repellent yarn and recently won the "TexTech Start-up Night" during the Niederrhein Start-up Week in November. "This remarkable pool of talent and innovation is increasingly crystallizing as a real unique selling point for Mönchengladbach in the start-up sector," Heinrichs continues. "With the scholarship, we want to help promote talented people like Leon Blanckart, keep them in the city beyond their time at the university and increase the likelihood of success of their projects a little."

WFMG - Wirtschaftsförderung Mönchengladbach GmbH
i.A. Jan Schnettler | schnettler@wfmg.de | Tel. 02161 82379-885
Photo (Source: Andreas Baum for WFMG)