Insider's Advantage? The Founders and Companies Reshaping Europe's Industrial Base
Insider’s Advantage? The Founders and Companies Reshaping Europe’s Industrial Base
Europe is rebuilding its industrial base: energy, materials, manufacturing, mobility. AI is reshaping what a factory floor can do, and the pressure to decarbonise is growing. What stays scarce is people who can build transformational companies at scale, navigating the reality of factory floors, financing, and permitting. These people often come from inside, having spent a decade within an industry, then leaving to build and scale the companies that change it.
On night two of Bits & Pretzels, we explore what it takes to reshape Europe’s industrial base.
Your hosts: AENU (early-stage VC), CDTM (leading technology & entrepreneurship program), Netlight (tech consultancy), UnternehmerTUM (TUM's startup hub) and ImpactVC (VC-focused community).
What to expect from the event: Airbus and Siemens will each pitch one real problem from the industrial floor, something they haven't cracked internally as a conversation starter and call to founders and prospective founders in the room. Then founders from Telura and Zeit AI join Airbus on stage to discuss sustainability tech, how corporates and startups work together, and whether time inside a corporate is an advantage.
Much of that is also a decarbonisation story. At the event, AENU will release new research on the founders behind Europe's best-funded climate-tech companies, in collaboration with publishing partner Green Executives. Where those founders came from is one of the questions the panel picks up.
On stage:
Reverse pitches
Dipjyoti Deb – Impact Innovation & Impact Investing, Airbus
Mathias Oppelt – Vice President, Head of Customer-Driven Innovation, Siemens
Panel
Dipjyoti Deb – Impact Innovation & Impact Investing, Airbus
Leopold von Waldthausen – Co-Founder & CEO, Zeit AI
Philipp Engelkamp – Co-Founder & CEO, Telura; Co-Founder, INERATEC
Moderated by Narin Mahmuti – Manager, Netlight
The agenda:
18:45 – Opening remarks & presentation of AENU research
19:00 – Reverse pitches: Airbus and Siemens
19:15 – Panel on the future of European industry
19:50 – Networking, drinks & dinner
Hosted by:
Elena Harumi Stark VP Impact & Platform at AENU & German Chapter Lead at ImpactVC & David Erhun & Michelle Piontek at AENU
Anna Neumann & Sven Hörner – CDTM
Frederick Pietzcker & Julia Sophie v. Knoblauch - Netlight
Philip Prestele - Startup Ecosystem Evangelist - UnternehmerTUM
Your Hosts
AENU is a climate tech VC backing founders building the next generation of sustainable, impact-driven companies. The fund partners early with ambitious teams and supports them hands-on as they scale real-world solutions to global challenges.
CDTM (Center for Digital Technology and Management) is a joint institution of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU) and the Technische Universität München (TUM), offering talented students the international and interdisciplinary study program “Technology Management”. With 300+ companies founded, 10 unicorns, and over €9 billion in total funding, CDTM alumni have built ~20% of all German unicorns and shaped Europe's startup ecosystems.
ImpactVC equips venture capital leaders with the frontier insight, tools, and trusted relationships to raise and deploy capital more effectively to drive meaningful impact.
Netlight is an international digital consulting firm, helping leading companies to succeed in the digital landscape, from advice to implementation. Our ambition is to co-create and be an augmented partner to our clients as they explore the digital landscape. Our clients range from industry-leading enterprises to disruptive startups turning into unicorns. We strive to be role models — conscious of positive change at the forefront of society's digital transformation. Creativity thrives in an inclusive and diverse culture. Together with our ambitious clients, we engage in challenges to make a sustainable impact.
UnternehmerTUM is a unique platform for the development of innovations. UnternehmerTUM actively identifies innovative technologies and initiates new business through the systematic networking of talents, technologies, capital and customers. UnternehmerTUM offers founders and startups a complete service from the initial idea to IPO. A team of over 500 experienced entrepreneurs, including scientists and investors, supports startups with business creation, market entry and financing – also with venture capital. Founded in 2002 by the entrepreneur Susanne Klatten, the non-profit UnternehmerTUM GmbH is the leading center for innovation and business creation in Europe with more than 100 high-growth technology startups every year - including Celonis, Konux, and Isar Aerospace.