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bm|t newsletter Q1 2023

Dur­ing the first quar­ter, we were for­tu­nate to join a Thürin­gen polit­i­cal and eco­nomic del­e­ga­tion to Sil­i­con Val­ley, dur­ing which we met with many lead­ing tech com­pa­nies and received sur­pris­ingly inti­mate access to high-level man­age­ment. Although we have been to The Val­ley many times, it had been over five years since our last trip, and we were deeply impressed by many break­through tech­nolo­gies that are devel­op­ing at light­speed and unleash­ing a pow­er­ful wave of new prod­ucts and solu­tions that will dra­mat­i­cally impact the tech­nol­ogy landscape.

In this Newsletter 

California Dreamin’

Because of their extremely deep and broad reach­ing appli­ca­tions and impli­ca­tions, two com­pa­nies stood out in our mind as clearly rev­o­lu­tion­ary and with rel­e­vance for the Thürin­gen inno­va­tion ecosys­tem: Jabil Sys­tems and Nvidia.

Nor­mally it would be unusual to say that a con­tract man­u­fac­turer like Jabil Sys­tems would be rev­o­lu­tion­ary. How­ever, after see­ing how Jabil is assim­i­lat­ing the newest man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nolo­gies (3D Print­ing, New Mate­ri­als, Smart Com­po­nents, etc.) into all of its cus­tomers’ prod­ucts and thus cre­at­ing rad­i­cally new prod­uct capa­bil­i­ties and eco­nom­ics, we are con­vinced that Jabil is chang­ing the rules of the game. With com­pa­nies like Jabil pos­sess­ing such deep tech capa­bil­i­ties, the days of out­sourc­ing a prod­uct so some­one else can han­dle the bor­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing part are long gone. Jabil is also a prod­uct designer and accel­er­ates time-to-mar­ket for its cus­tomers dra­mat­i­cally; how­ever, Jabil’s power extends way beyond those ben­e­fits. Because Jabil has incred­i­bly deep knowl­edge of how to seam­lessly inte­grate a vast array of cut­ting-edge tech­nolo­gies into prod­ucts, com­pa­nies that part­ner with Jabil receive a fun­da­men­tally enhanced prod­uct, which can open up sig­nif­i­cant new busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties. Jabil has an inno­va­tion office here in Jena for its Jabil Optics divi­sion and offers inno­v­a­tive opti­cal com­pa­nies here in Thürin­gen, of which we have many, an excel­lent oppor­tu­nity to accel­er­ate prod­uct devel­op­ment and enhance their offering.

Nvidia is more of a dis­rupter in the clas­sic sense that its own prod­ucts and soft­ware stack are rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing the world, although Nvidia’s GPUs are, of course, a key build­ing block for many world-chang­ing devel­op­ments being led by other com­pa­nies, such as many AI mod­els and appli­ca­tions. Nvidia orig­i­nated as a graph­ics card com­pany for the gam­ing indus­try, but has adeptly built on its exper­tise in par­al­lel pro­cess­ing to expand into many new fields. Being a Ger­man del­e­ga­tion, we were treated to a stun­ning exam­ple of how Nvidia’s Omni­verse plat­form is being used to develop an extremely life-like dig­i­tal twin of the entire Deutsche Bahn train net­work (down to the last screw on every train!). This Newslet­ter does not have enough space to expound fur­ther on Nvidia’s impres­sive tech and appli­ca­tions, but we encour­age all tech investors to research its Omni­verse and intel­li­gent video capa­bil­i­ties, as their impact will be revolutionary.

For our invest­ment activ­i­ties in Thürin­gen, we returned from this trip with exhil­a­ra­tion and also with increased clar­ity of how our Investee-Part­ners can also cap­i­tal­ize on the major new tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ments rapidly reshap­ing the world. In many cases our exper­tise and high-tech prod­ucts can be enhanced by inte­grat­ing these new tech­nolo­gies and/or build­ing high-value and end-mar­ket spe­cific solu­tions on top of or in col­lab­o­ra­tion with these plat­forms. Key to suc­cess­fully achiev­ing this posi­tion­ing is keep­ing an open and alert mind to be acutely aware of just how these tech­nolo­gies are devel­op­ing and which impli­ca­tions (espe­cially the mas­sive oppor­tu­ni­ties!) they hold for our endeavors.

To con­tinue the Cal­i­for­nia theme, to cre­ate great value from the excel­lent tech we are blessed with in Thürin­gen, we must catch the fast-mov­ing tech waves and be posi­tioned cor­rectly on the waves to surf them well.

Let’s go surf­ing now, everybody’s learn­ing how! – The Beach Boys

Your bm|t Team

Follow-on Investments

Every­one knows that you do not make money with print­ers; you make it with the ink (con­sum­ables). Ilme­nau-based Lean Plas­tics believes that the same phe­nom­e­non will play out in 3D print­ing and has con­se­quently focused on opti­miz­ing plas­tic con­sum­ables for 3D print­ing. The com­pany already has a strong ven­ture investor with excel­lent exper­tise in the field of 3D print­ing, and we are extremely opti­mistic that Lean Plas­tics will play a sig­nif­i­cant, and highly-prof­itable, role in the addi­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing rev­o­lu­tion. With this seven-fig­ure series A invest­ment co-led by a pri­vate insti­tu­tional investor and bm‑t, Lean Plas­tics is well-funded and posi­tioned for large-scale mar­ket entry with its inno­v­a­tive plas­tic powders.

devie Med­ical is is devel­op­ing a drug-elut­ing catheter-deliv­ered heart valve for the treat­ment and pre­ven­tion of bac­te­r­ial endo­cardi­tis (BE). The com­pany is pur­su­ing a sim­i­lar devel­op­ment as observed in the vas­cu­lar stent mar­ket, where drug-elut­ing stents sig­nif­i­cantly reduced vas­cu­lar resteno­sis and replaced surgery. Anal­o­gously, a drug elut­ing valve aims to reduce the need for open heart surgery in BE cases. devie med­ical has already made excel­lent progress and this seven-fig­ure round led by bm‑t and joined by mul­ti­ple pri­vate investors will allow for con­cept freeze and posi­tion the com­pany well for a Series B to fund ini­tial clin­i­cal trials.

Hey­fair is ded­i­cated to rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing the way dis­in­fec­tion works. The company’s inno­v­a­tive tech­nol­ogy makes the appli­ca­tion and cov­er­age of dis­in­fec­tants vis­i­ble to users and observers, ensur­ing opti­mal san­i­ta­tion prac­tices. Through­out its devel­op­ment, Hey­fair has dis­cov­ered numer­ous promis­ing appli­ca­tions for this tech­nol­ogy, such as ver­i­fy­ing proper dis­in­fec­tion of sur­faces, human skin, and med­ical devices. The com­pany pos­sesses strong IP around the inte­gra­tion of unique col­oration sys­tems that make proper dis­in­fec­tion vis­i­ble with a vibrant color dur­ing the clean­ing process. Hey­fair has suc­cess­fully built part­ner­ships to com­mer­cial­ize its tech­nol­ogy and with this invest­ment from bm|t, a fam­ily-office, and sev­eral busi­ness angels, Hey­fair is now well-equipped to expand its unique tech­nol­ogy across mul­ti­ple high-value med­ical appli­ca­tions, ulti­mately enhanc­ing safety and hygiene stan­dards in health­care set­tings worldwide.

Investor Days Thüringen — Save the Date!

In less than two months, on June 14th and 15th, Investor Days Thürin­gen (IDT), the pre­mier early- and growth-stage pitch event in mid­dle Ger­many, will wel­come over 500 par­tic­i­pants, with approx­i­mately 60 start-ups pre­sent­ing their inno­va­tions and visions. After last year’s ener­getic return to a live event, we are again excited to offer our guests great live pitches, beers & brats and much more! Mark your cal­en­dars – we will see you in June!

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