NRW startup triumphs in USA final round

A four-member founding team from RWTH and Ruhr Universität Bochum (RUB) was awarded first place in the 22nd Rice Business Plan Competition (RBPC), the largest and most generously rewarded startup competition for university teams in the world.

In the initial selection, the Lidrotec team from North Rhine-Westphalia faced down more than 400 fellow competitors from all over the world. It is one of only two international teams that have made it into the final round alongside prestigious institutions such as Harvard University, Boston University, and John Hopkins University. Along with Lidrotec, the ‘Invitris’ team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) also reached the final and took 3rd place. As the winner, Lidrotec was awarded the main prize – an investment prize of US$350,000 from GOOSE Capital. Other awards received by the company at RBPC included the Softeq Venture Studio prize of US$125,000, the TiE Houston Angels prize of US$100,000, the RBPC Alumnus, Thomas Healy prize of US$50,000, the Eagle Investors prize of US$5000, the Best Hard Tech Elevator Pitch prize of US$500 and the RG Advisors CFO Consulting prize. The team convinced the jury with its patent-pending technology and so won a total of almost US$630,000 in investments and grants.

Producing microchips with almost no losses

Lidrotec GmbH builds and markets laser machines for cutting microchips in the semiconductors industry. Microchips are produced in batches of thousands on what is known as a ‘wafer’. Before the chips can be used in a smartphone or a computer, they must first be cut out of the wafer. By using the Lidrotec technology, the rejection rate during this cutting process, which can currently be up to 10 percent, can be reduced almost to zero. Semiconductor manufacturers can thereby save significant costs and increase productivity. The unique innovations are based on the use of liquids during the laser cutting process. This cools the wafer as it is cut, while the cutting residues that arise are efficiently rinsed away.

The founders of the startup, Jan Hoppius, Alexander Igelmann, Alexander Kanitz, and Jannis Köhler studied at RUB and RWTH and in some cases achieved a doctorate, and the company was founded in April 2021. Co-founder and RWTH alumnus Alexander Igelmann is currently working on a doctorate with Professor Malte Brettel at the Chair of Economics for Engineers and Natural Scientists. The team receives support with its technology, developed at RUB, from the startup centers of both universities – RWTH Innovation and the WORLDFACTORY startup center at RUB – as part of the Excellence Start-up Center (ESC) initiative of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Innovation, Digitalization and Energy for North Rhine-Westphalia.

‘Lidrotec’s success is a fine example of cooperation between the universities in North Rhine-Westphalia and gives a strong indication of the potential being unleashed by the Excellence Start-up Center initiative in particular’, comments Marius Rosenberg, director of the ESC at RWTH, who accompanied the team to Houston and who was also himself a RBPC winner in 2014 for his RWTH startup Adhesys Medical. ‘Lidrotec clearly demonstrates the transfer of an idea in science into a successful startup’, adds Marc Seelbach, head of the Transfer and Entrepreneurship department at RUB.

The team of Lidrotec founders can now look forward to further strong support from the USA and is planning a financing round with an overall volume of US$3.5 million over the course of 2022 to complete the development phase and to purchase the first machines.

– Marius Rosenberg