Meet our EIT Food TeamUp 2022 winners

TeamUp is a programme that finds and matches brilliant technologists with compatible business entrepreneurs and supports them on their journey to co-create truly impactful agrifood ventures.

On November 14 and 15, the EIT Food TeamUp programme concluded with the Pitching Days in which 15 teams competed for the prizes of €40,000, €25,000, €15,000, and €10,000.

The competition was judged by a panel comprised of top agrifood experts: Katja Häkkä (Vice President (Food Technology) at High Metal Ltd.), Yulia Bodnar (Expert in business creation and startup support), Joe Lake (CEO of Canada Food Innovation Network) and Zoe Cowley (R&D Ecosystems manager at Ekaterra).

The jury had the difficult task of choosing four winners among 15 excellent teams. In the end, the jury awarded the prizes to startups with the most impactful agrifood solutions and the most promising teams.

1st Prize – €40,000

Noovi, Slovakia

Led by Martina Drobna, Roman Korbacka and Aysegul Yilmaz, Noovi is a unique line of host marking pheromones for non-toxic, zero-residue crop protection against pests, with no health risk to farmers and the environment.

2nd Prize – €25,000

MAKABI, Croatia

Develops small microcapsules for plant nutrition/protection for agroecological agriculture, functional food production. The startup, led by Marko Vinceković and Yana Horn, seeks to decrease the usage of fertilizers, reduce environmental pollution, mitigates climate change and increases the biopotential of produced food.

3rd Prize – €15,000

OG Sense, Latvia

OG Sense is the future of ammonia gas detection sensors. Aleksejs Korabovskis and Valters Slava aim to optimize ventilation costs and well-being of the poultry, with a unique optical gas sensor, fully resistant against ammonia and other aggressive gases in the very demanding space of chicken farming.

4th Prize – €10,000

NanoDrip, Poland

Zoltan Csipai and Andrey Poltavets work on a superb Nanobubble generating technology which boosts plants growth and health, increases fertilizers absorption efficiency and cleans irrigation systems by effective enrichment of water with billions of tiny oxygen bubbles.

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In case of any questions or interest in the winning teams, please feel free to contact TeamUp Programme leads Paulina Nowotka (Junior RIS Project Manager, paulina.nowotka@eitfood.eu) and Juan Ignacio Zaffora (Regional Startup Manager, juan.zaffora@eitfood.eu).

About TeamUp

TeamUp is a 7-month programme that finds and matches up brilliant innovators with compatible and complementary profiles. TeamUp provides important tools and support to build an agrifood startup including expert guidance, world-class training, mentorship, networking and funding. The programme is designed for two types of innovators from Southern and Eastern Europe: technologists with innovative agrifood solutions and entrepreneurial business professionals who want to build an agrifood startup.

Selected from over 280 applications, 61 innovators from 16 countries were invited to the Matchmaking phase of the 2022 TeamUp edition. During the Matchmaking weeks, participants were networking, getting to know each other, testing the relationship through business scenarios, pitching and learning more about their own values and ambition.

After the Matchmaking phase, 15 matches were made between tech innovators with agrifood solutions and business professionals. The 15 newly created teams continued into the Exploration phase, during which they explored and tested their match. The teams were supported with business and team formation training, a monthly stipend, as well as business and team building coaching from 14 world-class experts.

At the end of the programme, 15 teams presented their solutions and TeamUp journey during the Pitching Days.

The next edition of TeamUp will be launched in early 2023. More information about TeamUp can be found on the programme webpage.