Meet the Startups of Growth Train Fast Track 2019

After two selection rounds over the summer, Growth Train has selected ten companies to participate in this year’s seven-week Fast Track accelerator program. A diverse group of men and women with innovative business cases will work intensively with Growth Train’s talented pool of business developers and mentors, as well as a broad network of partners and investors. The goal after the seven weeks is to sharpen their business model and strengthen their position in their target markets and be even more robust for further investment.

“We are here to support our startups from the selection phase, during the program, and well after the program. During the program, we hope to help them find business opportunities and investors in order for them to prolong their engagement with Growth Train and the Fehmarnbelt region, more specifically Lolland-Falster,” says Christiane Paaske-Sørensen, Head of Growth Train for Business Lolland-Falster, which is the organization that drives the program.

The seven-week Fast Track comprises of five intensive sprints, all of which are designed to help startups in different aspects of company growth and development. “We have basically truncated six months worth of work into seven weeks. It’s intense and a lot of hard work is required, but what it also does is give absolute focus on what needs to be done and tackle them,” Eythor Jonsson explains. He is the program developer and lead for Growth Train.

“Our group of mentors and partners has varied educational and corporate backgrounds, skillset, and network, giving our startups a very good basis from which to gain perspective, support and knowledge. Besides mentors within the Food & Agritech clusters, we have academics, scientists and market experts – all of whom will contribute knowledge, experience and network to our startups,” explains Christiane Paaske-Sørensen.

The startups will also have access to capital during the program. Growth Train has cooperation with DanBan and JBI Equity and other private investors who have their eyes focused on the next innovative investment.

MEET THE STARTUPS

This year’s startups is a global melting pot of talent and business ideas. We are excited to welcome them to the region and to kick-off the program, as well as a series of value-adding activities with them.

Agrynex (USA)
Agrynex is the successful developer of enzyme-based crop protection products that deploy a naturally occurring antimicrobial enzyme system to protect plants where and when it counts. We are targeting the markets for microbicidal actives (2019: $5.6B, 6.8% CAGR), including fungicides, and seed treatment solutions (2019: $1.2B, 8% CAGR). Agrynex is currently headquartered in Ithaca, NY, USA but has a global network of collaborators and partners in the US and Europe.

Cater Us (Argentina)
CaterUs is the B2B marketplace for office meals and catering. CaterUs develops a web and mobile app that connects companies with local restaurants in order to solve the benefit of lunch for employees and catering for events. They handle the logistics of search, delivery and payment; giving clients an integral solution for the food and culinary area in their offices.

DealFinder (Denmark)
Online platform.

Die Frishemanufaktur (Germany)
In this hectic and mobile everyday life DIE FRISCHEMANUFAKTUR wants to provide its customers with a high-quality and fresh alternative to existing to-go snacks. They want to bring the flair of home-made and hand-made, prepared with love products back. FRISCHEMANUFAKTUR offers fresh-cut fruit salads as a snack on the go. The two colourful fruit mixes are cut from high quality fruits by hand and bottled. Thanks to natural vitamin C coating and additional sealing, they are fresh and crisp for a particularly long time.

Kray Technologies (Ukraine)
Application of crop protection impacts up to 70% of yield, but mid-size farmers have to buy this protection as a service. However, these services are often too costly and time-constraining.
Since 2015, Kray Technologies has been committed to responding to these challenges, providing farmers with the level of crop protection productivity they need.

Ponko Sweets (Ukraine)
Ponko Sweets is changing the candy market for adults with their innovative line of products, laced with alcoholic spirits, using the freshest and best-tasting ingredients the market has to offer.

Sustainable Energy (USA)
The primary mission of SEAT is to develop sustainable technology for agriculture and other processes. At present, SEAT is involved in design and construction of a Near Zero Carbon (NZC) micro-greenhouses, where any diesel or propane based heating is eliminated by Solar PV based energy source. In addition, SEAT is experimenting with different Phase Change Material (PCM) based Thermal Energy Systems to reduce thermal peak load in the greenhouse enclosure.
“Our vision is to disrupt the tradional centralized landbased farming and supermarket-supplied vegetables by distributed networks of micro-greenhouses owned by homeowners and small businesses.”

Sugavida (UK)
Sugavida produces a unique natural sugar made from the unrefined nectar of the blossom of the Palmyra palm tree. Highly nutritious and the only alkalising, anti-inflammatory and anti-fungal sugar researched to date, SugaVida enhances rather than endangers your health. The company aims to spread nature’s ultimate superfood after experiencing its wonderful therapeutic benefits and taste.

Wellcrop Europe (Denmark)
WellCrop is a microbial technology company developing microbial crop solutions for the agricultural industry. They identify the optimal collection of microbes and nutrients to produce high quality inputs and crop care products, creating sustainable farming practices, as well as helping the environment. WellCrop is committed to improving the productivity and profit for farmers, providing affordable and chemical free products.

Xtream Biotech (Spain)
Xtrem Biotech is a technology-based company that develops, produces and commercializes biostimulants and pesticides of biological origin to offer respectful and compatible solutions to the environment. The company has an exclusive collection of microorganisms and a production plant for the cultivation, formulation and packaging of plant bio-stimulants.
Xtrem Biotech was founded in 2013 from a research group of the University of Granada and has a team of scientists with extensive experience in industrial biotechnology and plant physiology.

ABOUT GROWTH TRAIN

The Growth Train accelerator was launched in 2017 by Business Lolland-Falster, as a seven-week intensive program.

In 2019, Growth Train launches an “mini” accelerator program for local Food & Agro micro startups, which consists of 5 sprints, sparring with lecturers and business developers in order to achieve the next level in their development.