The team led by Lena Hiltel, Celina Bauer, Annalena Lüdeke and Marius Kloos from OTH Regensburg had already prevailed against a total of 93 outstanding start-ups in the preliminary phase and thus qualified for the ranks of the top 20, who were able to pitch their start-up idea to a total of 18 jury members in Nuremberg. The team impressed the jury with their ‘RocketMind’ app, a digital helper to strengthen the mental health of young people, and thus made it into the top 10 most outstanding start-ups in the first phase of the BayStartUP e.V. Northern Bavaria Business Competition.
A total of two start-up teams from Regensburg, TrueCore and RocketMind, competed to present their business concepts to the jury. RocketMind impressively demonstrated how promising a well thought-out business idea can be. The team is now moving on in leaps and bounds: on 8 April 2025, they will be back on stage to compete in the next phase of the competition in the ‘Marketing and Sales’ category. ‘We were already able to benefit from valuable expert feedback in the first phase. The competition is a unique opportunity to expand our network and take our concept to the next level,’ says co-founder Lena Hiltel.
OTH Regensburg start-up centre supports the founding team
The quartet started their journey to founding a company on the OTH Master's programme in Digital Entrepreneurship: as part of a seminar on entrepreneurial opportunities, they took part in the Start-up Factory of the Digital Start-up Initiative Oberpfalz in the TechBase, where they immediately took second place - a clear sign of their enormous potential. Since then, the team has been making intensive use of the first-class resources in the OTH Start-up Lab to work on the further development of their first prototype. Dr Alexandra Sauter, project manager at BioPark Jump. and Dr Thomas Diefenthal, CEO of the BioPark, provide the team with full support in the start-up ecosystem at OTH Regensburg. In addition, the Master's programme in Digital Entrepreneurship (MDE) at OTH Regensburg provides them with valuable scientific impetus for founding a company. In at least three courses of the Master's programme, the team can advance their start-up project at the Faculty of Business and Management with a focus on augmented reality features and market entry planning in a scientifically sound manner.
For Prof. Dr Sean-Patrick Saßmannshausen, Head of the Start-up Centre at OTH Regensburg, the award is further impressive proof of how important it is to closely interlink science, entrepreneurship and practical support: ‘The RocketMind team shows that our concept for the OTH Master's degree course in Digital Entrepreneurship is working, namely to lay the foundations for students’ own start-ups during their studies. Collaboration in the regional start-up ecosystem then helps to pave the way from university to the business world. Competitions such as the renowned Business Plan Wettbewerb Nordbayern give our founders the opportunity to measure themselves against other projects and succeed.’
OTH Regensburg sees the success of the RocketMind team as confirmation of its strategy of promoting founders at an early stage and offering them a comprehensive support network. Competition successes like this once again demonstrate the outstanding role of the OTH Start-up Centre as an important driver of innovation and start-ups in the region.
Background: Business Plan Competition Northern Bavaria
The Business Plan Competition Northern Bavaria specifically supports founders and start-ups from Franconia and the Upper Palatinate in three competition phases. The individual phases reflect the various development stages of founding a company - from developing the business idea, the business model and analysing the market environment to planning financing and sales development. For each entry in the competition, all participants - not just the winning teams - receive qualified written feedback from an honorary expert jury of experienced entrepreneurs, investors and experts from the start-up scene. The competition is organised by BayStartUP. This year, 93 teams took part in phase 1 of the competition. Newcomers who were not yet involved in phase 1 can currently still enter phases 2 and 3. Students and university members who would still like to take part in phases 2 and 3 of the Northern Bavaria Business Plan Competition can seek advice and coaching from the OTH Start-up Centre.
Further information on the competition and the conditions of participation can be found at: www.baystartup.de
All activities relating to start-ups, self-employment and company succession can be found on the website of the OTH Regensburg Start-up Center.
