The Harbour Founder Summit, an event organised by the international student initiative START at Kühne Logistics University (KLU), took place at the weekend. At the heart of the event was a startup competition. aimea.ai won the decisive pitch with its artificial intelligence for conducting job interviews.
Hamburg is one of 21 START locations
START was founded in 1997 at the University of St. Gallen to give students an understanding of entrepreneurial thinking. The network now spans 21 locations on two continents. The annual highlight is the START Summit, which will take place on 19 and 20 March 2026. Participation in the startup competition held there was one of the prizes to be won at the Harbour Founder Summit. Another was a ticket to the final of the Startup World Cup in San Francisco in November 2026. The organiser, venture capitalist Pegasus Tech Ventures, is offering prize money of 1 million US dollars.
Four startups from four categories in the final
Sixteen startups competed in four categories in the qualifying pitch in Hamburg, with one finalist emerging from each category. In the ‘Energy’ sector, the winner was Fermeta, which develops special livestock feed to reduce methane emissions in cattle breeding. The gas produced during the animals' digestive process is many times more harmful to the climate than CO2. In the ‘Social’ category, mellem, a startup that tackles the taboo subject of death, came out on top. A platform makes it easier to organise a funeral and brings relatives together with service providers such as cemetery administrators and gravestone carvers.
In the ‘Deep Tech’ area, SURFACtoBioTech qualified for the Hamburg final. This startup uses droplet-based biotechnology to make scientific experiments faster and more reliable. Of course, there was also a category for artificial intelligence. The successful startup aimea.ai won the final and will represent Hamburg next year in St. Gallen and San Francisco. It owes its success to AI that conducts psychologically sound job interviews. For large job advertisements, this leads to considerable time and money savings, with the average cost per interview falling from 55 to 15 euros. Initial pilot projects have already generated revenue.
