More than 4 million euros in funding from Brussels for DORUCON clients

9. June 2022Press

09.06.2022, Brussels/Munich/Saarbrücken: The management consultancy DORUCON was able to bring two of its clients to success in the highly competitive, European funding programme for groundbreaking innovations, the EIC Accelerator. Both clients, alocalo from Friedrichsthal in Saarland and TWAICE from Munich, will now each receive over 2 million euros in funding from Brussels.

“Next Level” funding with the EIC Accelerator

The EIC Accelerator is one of the most demanding innovation funding programmes in Europe. With strong competition, participating companies have to prove themselves with their projects in an extensive application process.

The target group of the EIC Accelerator are start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises that can sustainably change the European market with disruptive innovations. Across Europe, the chances of success are around 5 percent. Both teams were accompanied by DORUCON from the submission of a sketch to the full application to the pitch interview in Brussels. At the pitch interview in front of a jury of experts, both alocalo and TWAICE were convincing.

alocalo brings local shops on par with e-commerce

The start-up alocalo, based in Friedrichsthal in Saarland, began as a FITT project funded by IANEO and Globus and has been able to develop the prototype of its disruptive shopping platform since the project began in 2020 and the company was subsequently founded in May 2021.

This makes it possible to shop at local retailers via a local online shopping platform, even if consumers search for products on existing shopping portals. Local shops often have to close because the e-commerce market has become more attractive to end consumers than shopping in brick-and-mortar retail shops. The global e-commerce market is growing continuously and online shopping has increased not only due to the Corona crisis. At the same time, the extinction of city centres continues to increase and stationary retail in Germany is recording high losses.

The start-up is tackling the challenge of countering the growing e-commerce market with brick-and-mortar retail through their innovation. The self-learning AI-based search algorithm uses existing shopping portals as input and searches for similar products in the alocalo product database. In this way, the reach of retailers is massively increased as end consumers can use their usual preferred online shopping sites to be redirected to local retailers. This is the first time that retailers, regardless of whether they have their own online shop or not, will be visible on all classic online platforms.

TWAICE combines battery knowledge and AI in the digital twin.

TWAICE provides predictive analytics software that optimises lithium-ion battery development and operation. TWAICE’s core technology is the digital twin – software that combines in-depth battery knowledge and artificial intelligence to determine condition and predict battery ageing and performance.

This makes complex battery systems more transparent, effective and reliable. TWAICE is thus addressing the problem of the increasing demand for batteries. By 2030 we will have between two and three thousand GWh of battery storage. That’s about 60 gigafactories, like the one Tesla has just opened in Berlin-Brandenburg. But the resources such as lithium or cobalt are not renewable, battery production is very energy-intensive and to date only five percent of batteries are recycled.

With the support of the EIC Accelerator, TWAICE is developing a unique ecosystem for lithium-ion batteries that will enable the direct reuse of at least 70 percent of battery modules that today end up in landfills. TWAICE will provide accurate information about the current status of each module, automatically determine its residual value and assemble modules for repackaging. As TWAICE also provides forecasts of service life and performance, it will also be possible for the first time to obtain a warranty and insurance for repackaged batteries.

Über DORUCON - DR. RUPP CONSULTING GmbH

About DORUCON – DR. RUPP CONSULTING GmbH

DORUCON – DR. RUPP CONSULTING GmbH advises companies throughout Germany and Europe, from start-ups and SMEs to large enterprises, on the realisation of their innovation projects and offers support in funding and financing of growth. The support includes a full service that covers the planning, application and processing of grants and financing. Our offer thus includes not only assistance with innovation promotion, but also with investment grants and financing.

DORUCON has more than 10 years of experience in technology and innovation funding at state, federal and EU level. Supported funding programmes include the Central Innovation Programme for SMEs (ZIM), KMU-innovativ, the research allowance (Forschungszulage), the EIC Accelerator, the GRW funding and go-innovativ (go-inno). DORUCON is authorised by the Federal Ministry of Economics to issue consultancy vouchers of up to 27,500 euros for the go-inno funding programme. In addition, DORUCON is certified by TÜV Süd according to ISO 9001:2015 and is a member of the Offensive Mittelstand and the Bundesverband mittelständische Wirtschaft (BVMW).