Episode 28: Defying Death Valleys: Germany Promotes Disruptive Innovations

The foremost challenge for entrepreneurs and start-ups with potentially game-changing ideas is getting financial support for ideas and business concepts that, by definition, are completely untried. Germany recognizes the dilemma and has set up a government agency, called SPRIND (www.sprind.org), to assist the most audacious of innovations. We talk to SPRIND’s innovation manager and an agency-supported start-up that wants to rid the world’s waters of microplastics.

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Our Guests

Olav Carlsen_Foto | ©

SPRING Innovation Manager Olav Carlsen has specialized in radical business notions for more than 30 years. He now focuses on seeking out innovative ideas in Germany to ensure they get the support they need.

Roland Damann

Roland Damann is founder and CEO of Microbubbles, a company that has developed a novel approach to the problem of microplastic pollution. 

Transcript of this episode

 Presenter:
Inventions that have radically changed our world. Because they revolutionized the way we think, the way we act, the way we live together. Progress is not possible without disruptive ideas. They are needed…

Olav Carlsen, Sprin-D
Everywhere.

Presenter:
So says Olav Carlsen, who’s been working on radical business notions for more than 30 years.

Olav Carlsen, Sprin-D
We have a lot of ideas. Some of them work very well, but individually, isolated, they won't change the needle, as we would say. So you have to combine them, you have to make them big, and you have to really think creatively because this is a major societal, you know, task that we have to tackle, of course. New computing. Everything that we are set out to do now with artificial intelligence, we have to be much faster and much better in computing technology. Biotech. Big task! Anti-viral, antibiotic resistance, medical treatments, cancer, Alzheimer research, all these things are really just at the beginning. And then maybe new materials. New materials that help us reduce waste, that are more efficient in infrastructure building.

Welcome to INTO Germany, the German business podcast, brought to you by the international business promotion agency Germany Trade and Invest. I’m your host Kelly O’Brien.  
This time around on Into Germany, we’re talking about disruptive technologies. One very POSITIVE disruption would be to rid the world of microplastics. In a few minutes, we’re going to meet a German entrepreneur trying to do just that. But first, let’s look at the German government agency that bankrolls such disruptive innovations. It’s the „Agentur für Sprunginnovationen“ – or SPRIND, for short. Founded in 2019, it promotes groundbreaking technological and scientific innovations. Disruptive innovation is key to any economy's ability to survive over time. Startups play a crucial role in this process: They are typically small and lean, which allows them to pivot quickly and adapt to changes. In contrast to established conglomerates, they tend to promote a culture of experimentation and learning from failure. But in contrast to established companies, they often lack the necessary capital. That’s where SPRIND comes in.

So let’s go to our first guest, SPRIND innovation manager Olav Carlsen. Tell us Olav, what’s the idea behind the „Agentur für Sprunginnovationen“?

Olav Carlsen, Sprin-D
As a German federal agency our mandate is to support the breakthrough innovation landscape in Germany and beyond, actually all the way extending to Europe. And the focus is really on disruptive breakthrough innovations to recreate something that Europe and also Germany might not have been good at in the past 2 or 3 decades. I mean, Germany is highly innovative. There's no question about it. We're very good at, as we call incremental innovations. So based on something existing, make it better, innovate on that. But disruptive innovations that challenge the conventional wisdom, that recreate things for society, that really make a difference in the future of the world – we do a lot of that here in Germany in research, but then the productization, the commercialization of these products happened usually somewhere else. So to get that mojo back basically into Germany, this is what SPRIND was founded for.

Presenter:
The agency is initially planned for an experimental phase of ten years with a total expected budget of around 1 billion euros. A first evaluation report, presented in February 2025, has shown that this approach is very successful. According to the report, SPRIND was able to „close a gap“ in German research funding. There are several funding programs in Germany, but they are usually aimed at „normal“ start-ups. Olav, why do we need those separate support programs for companies working on disruptive ideas?

Olav Carlsen, Sprin-D
So the ones, as you call them, normal start ups, I would call them the startups that have incremental innovation ideas, that’s important. But usually in that sector, if the market's known, the risk is calculable, then the private market, the private capital market should be able to finance it. Where the private capital market does not function well is when the risks are unknown. You know, when you have new ideas that are so completely new that you don't know how to judge that risk. You don't know what the market is. For these kind of innovations, when you want to scale them, you need a lot of investment. These are not innovations that you can continue to develop at your at your desk. You have to build machinery, you have to build assets. You have to build something that startups, usually at that early stage, are not able to finance all by themselves. And commercial banks are not going to help them with capital because these are unknown business models. And commercial banks are obviously, you know, not willing to support that. That's not their business model. 
So this is why somebody like SPRIND is very important to help them bridge that gap. In the investment area we call it the value of death. You've achieved something. And you see on the other side of the valley, you see the next milestone. You have to get financing to get to the other side of the valley where the next proof of concept lies. But you need a lot of money, and if you don't have it, you fall into that valley and you die. And usually private capital is not willing to invest in you yet because they're waiting for exactly that proof of concept that lies at the other side of the valley. And so you need a bridge to get there. And this is what SPRIND is acting for, to bring those innovators to the other side, where they can then hopefully successfully also get other people to invest in them.

Presenter:
So the first major hurdle is finding the necessary financial support. What other challenges are there?

Olav Carlsen, SPRIND
Even though I mentioned it already, the most important one is money. So that's the biggest challenge that disruptors or disruptive innovators thinkers face all over the world. The second is to attract the intelligence, I mean the researchers, the people that can execute on these programs. They have to be scientists on one hand, but they also have to be entrepreneurs. That's a big challenge. And yes, you have to have government support I believe in this.

Presenter: 
What sort of support does SPRIND offer in this regard?

Olav Carlsen, SPRIND
Access to network is important. Access to researchers is important, to network with other researchers so that they can help you validate your claim. Access to maybe early adopters of your technologies that can give you input on how this technology would change their corporate world. So this all is an integrated support approach from SPRIND. We do all that: money, network, access to decision makers.
Sometimes you have to even be active in changing the political landscape to allow for new innovations to be able to use. Medical research is one of those fields. A lot of clinical tests. Fusion technology requires changing the legal framework sometimes. All of that comes from SPRIND. So it's not just money. We try to really help that innovation along its scaling with whatever it requires.

Presenter:
We heard a statement from you at the very beginning in which you said that these disruptive ideas are needed everywhere – be it energy transition or new building materials. How do you find revolutionary companies with such ideas?

Olav Carlsen, SPRIND
We’re actively sourcing. Right. We have 80 people. We have a lot of analysts. We attend a lot of events, almost, I don't know, 5 or 6 events every week. We work with the private capital market very intensively because they receive all the new ideas. So we work very closely with those VCs, or other investors that can, you know, refer some good ideas to us that they're not willing to take on themselves yet.

Presenter:
SPRIND has been around for five years. I assume a lot of ideas have landed on your desk during this time. How do you choose which ones to fund?

Olav Carlsen, SPRIND
I would say by now 2500 ideas. We receive about 400, 500 of those every year. That is still growing as we become known in a broader and broader also in the European context. And we have supported so far about 180 of them. I think we have to see that willingness to challenge conventional wisdom, to really have a vision of how their innovation will change certain things for consumers, for technology, for the world. An idea is an idea, but you have to see some proof of concept. Not a proof of product, but just the concept has to be, you have to see it and the team that they see how they can get there. What is needed to achieve that? And they have to be good at asking and organizing. Those are the key factors that would be important for us when we choose those teams.

Presenter:
Let's say I'm working on an idea that I believe will revolutionize the market. How can I apply for support?

Olav Carlsen, SPRIND
The process is simple. There is a 24/7 open link on our website. It's sprind.org. So we don't have deadlines for applications or registrations of your idea. We have a very simple process in that link. So you, the innovator will find a questionnaire with, I don't know, 15 or 17 questions, which I always tell everyone: If they need more than two hours to fill it out, they overdid it. It's very simple questions. With that, it goes into our innovation pipeline, and within 2 or 3 weeks, our technology analysts will pull this from the pipeline, look at it and decide whether it is something from the description that would fit our mandate: breakthrough innovation. If it fits, they will call you. Time to money as we call it can be relatively quickly. If it’s an early innovation where we would, maybe with very small tickets like €200,000 we can support the immediate early phase to help you really get to the first little proof of concept. I think within 6 or 8 weeks, this money can be actually given to those innovators.
We try to be disruptive in our own processes to not add bureaucracy where bureaucracy is not needed. So it's a team of specialists that look at it. If we cannot decide on it on our own internally, because we do not have enough resources to identify or to understand how disruptive it is, we have a network of hundreds of experts that we go to on the outside to help us understand what the innovator is actually proposing there. It's probably the shortest way to money within the tools that are available to fund operators because that's what we want: We want to be fast. We don't want to stop innovators with great ideas with bureaucracy.

Presenter:
You’ll find a link to the SPRIND website in our show notes. Olav, your agency has supported some  180 projects so far. What’s the strategy in the long term?

Olav Carlsen, SPRIND
There is a logic in the support that we give. So we start early on with those innovators to help them to get to their first, you know, validation of claim. We’re not a VC fund. As an agency, we can mix and match between giving them, what we call non-dilutive grants, so something that doesn't require that we take equity in it or participate as a shareholder in the company. We can issue grants to them. But we can also take equity, you know, make them participate in equity rounds. So this is different from a VC fund that can just obviously invest in equity. 
Obviously there's a logic in this. The smaller the company, the smaller the amount of money that they require to take them to the next step. SPRIND stands along the way of maturing that technology. But if somebody is already done with it and now wants to raise 20 million and really needs 20 million, they should approach us too. They don't have to come as a young company. They can also come when they are already established. They might have already raised their first money with private equity investors. But now, they’re facing that valley of death. They don't find enough private capital to finance that next stage. We treat them all the same. And then we decide what is the best instrument to help them along the way, to scale them to the next level.

Presenter:
Let’s zoom out for a moment. How do you assess the general situation in Germany, especially for companies working on disruptive ideas? Is it a good place to be?

Olav Carlsen, SPRIND
Despite all what we hear every day of the world, you will find definitely an extremely stable country. You will find a safe country. You find a lot of support programs. You find resources in really world class research programs from world class engineering universities. Really skilled engineering supporters of your technology, you know, staff that are willing to work in startups. You find a changed attitude versus probably 20 years ago. Germany was extremely risk averse. People leaving universities loved big corporations. And I think now you find a changed youth leaving university. It's more willing to take risks, to participate in great ideas, to be part of your venture. When you come to Germany, you will find interested young and very well educated people that can help you bring your idea to market.

Presenter:
And will you find customers?

Olav Carlsen, SPRIND 
Of course, you find a lot of corporate customers. We have a very strong industry which is user of technologies. So if you want to bring your product to market, where better than where the industry also is located that is actually using these innovations and not inventing it by itself. They're dependent on startup people to do it. So here you are with world class companies that produce world class products and require constant innovation. So I think that's a big benefit of being here in Germany too, or in the center of Europe.

Presenter:
Your enthusiasm is infectious. So, Olav, before we say goodbye – give us your elevator pitch. Why should fledgling companies contact you?

Olav Carlsen, SPRIND
I would really say if you have something that you consider disruptive breakthrough, call us! Because, that is what SPRIND was set up for. Iencourage everyone really from specifically Europe, but also outside of the world with interest in coming to Europe or to Germany, to look at our website. We will be hopefully there to remove some of those hurdles for you in the scaling process. This is our mandate. This is our interest. This is what government told us to do. This is why we were set up for. So we're taking this very seriously.

Presenter:
Thank you Olav. I can't wait to see what other ideas you dig up in the future. To see how the whole process works in practice, we invited an entrepreneur who successfully applied for SPRIND funding: the founder and CEO of the company Microbubbles. His name is Roland Damann, and he wants to free the world from microplastics. He’ll explain how this can be achieved – after our monthly news wrap up.

Presenter:
Patented success
Germany once again led the way in European patents in 2024. More than 25,000 applications were filed from the country to the European Patent Office, the EPO. That was about one in eight of all applications. Only applications from the United States exceeded that total. Computer technology – including AI machine learning and pattern recognition – was the top field.

Leading Role
German exports represent at least 30 percent of the global market in 180 different types of products. That’s the conclusion of a study by the German Economic Institute in Cologne based on the United Nations’ databank Comtrade. German exports were particularly prominent in chemicals, machinery, electronics and non-precious metals. German dominance reached 90 percent in certain sorts of fertilizers and painkillers. Germany also accounted for over half of world exports in specific types of microscopes, harvesters, control instruments and cranes.

Waving Hello
British AI automated driving company Wayve is expanding to Germany. The embodied artificial intelligence automotive pioneer is establishing a testing and development hub in Stuttgart. The expansion follows a one-billion-dollar-plus Series C financing round. Wayve has previously launched testing programs in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Lots and Lots of Watts
Germany will have over 4800 megawatts of data center capacity by the end of the decade. That’s the forecast of the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action. With 2000 data centers and a capacity of over 2700 megawatts, Germany already has the largest digital infrastructure in Europe. Capacity has doubled since 2010 and looks set to increase by 78 percent in the years to come. The largest hubs are the Frankfurt-Rhine-Main region, Berlin and Brandenburg, and the Cologne-Düsseldorf area.

And finally Constitutional Change
Germany’s parliament has approved dramatic changes to rules governing state borrowing that will increase public investments by half a TRILLION euros in the next twelve years. The additional financing is earmarked for infrastructure and climate protection. Additionally, defense spending is now completely exempt from debt limits. And Germany’s 16 regional states will also be allowed to take out lines of credit.

Presenter:
That last bit of news certainly disrupts the status quo in Germany, and the new rules should provide powerful economic stimulus. Disruptive solutions are often needed for urgent problems, one of which is microplastics. They pose a threat to people and the environment, especially the oceans. Our next guest Roland Damann from the company Microbubbles has been working with water for his entire professional life. Over the last decades, he completed over 350 water projects across 50 countries in Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East.

Roland Damann, Microbubbles
I've always had a deep love affair with water, but here's something that's really boiling my kettle. Since the 1950s, an estimated 10.9 billion tons of plastic have been produced. And annoyingly, the most of it is still in the environment. And this is, just to give an example of, the equivalent of 200,000 Titanics. And conventional solutions can't keep up. So we set out to change that. And it's clear that we need a fresh perspective. Microplastics don't disappear. They accumulate in nature and river and in our bodies.

Presenter:
So what’s your disruptive approach to countering this danger?

Roland Damann, Microbubbles
Well, water purification is as old as the Romans, but for centuries the approach has been incremental, small improvements, nothing truly disruptive. My idea: Instead of building large external treatment plants, we clean the water in situ, directly at the source. This is a fast, cost effective and infinitely scalable solution. We are doing exactly that. Injecting billions of microscopic air bubbles by a smart, controlled manner into the water using a patented smart technology. These tiny bubbles latch perfectly onto solids, such as pesky and hydrophobic microplastics, and float them to the surface, where we simply vacuum them away. Low energy, no chemicals, no fuss, and ideal for use in any basic channel or waterway. So it's a very simple and easy way to tackle the problem. But that's only one chapter of the story. We need also robust analytical methods to measure exactly how effective any technology is. Because let's be honest, you can't measure it – you can't improve it. And so we developed the first real time in line detection system from microplastics. And in combination with a fast, high resolution laboratory analytics, we are mapping pollution as it happens.

Presenter:
You said it's a „very simple and easy way to tackle the problem“. But I’m guessing in real life, it's quite complicated. What were the biggest challenges and technical hurdles in developing this innovation, especially as this was a completely new idea?

Roland Damann, Microbubbles
The biggest challenge? Well, well. Getting started. I launched a company with nothing but a MacBook and a rented desk in the tech hub in Paderborn in the middle of a pandemic. But my biggest worry, thankfully, just vanished into thin air. I thought building the team would be a nightmare under these conditions. Turns out, with a project this groundbreaking and SPRIND backing us, it was easier than falling asleep during a conference call. And fast forward to today, we have a team of 60 researchers working across four locations in Germany. We are here in Paderborn and we're in Leipzig, Munich and in Bayreuth.

Presenter:
Microbubbles is one of many companies selected for support by SPRIND. How has the agency influenced your work?

Roland Damann, Microbubbles
It allowed us to take a completely fresh approach, building a high motivated, multi-disciplinary team with expertise across all necessary fields related to microplastics. Initially, we focused solely on eliminating microplastics, but we quickly realized that finding the needle in the haystack meant that we first had to locate the haystack. And that led us to identify hotspots like the fact that 60% of microplastic pollution is coming from tire abrasion. And from there, we researched from municipal applications to industrial solutions, integrating in-situ purification and retrofitting existing treatment systems.

Presenter: 
Why did you opt for this state funding? What advantages does it give you compared to private funding?

Roland Damann, Microbubbles
We're in this for the long run. We wanted to create a real breakthrough innovation, something scalable with a global impact. And this isn't about short term profits. It's about developing a truly disruptive technology made in Germany that can become the foundation of sustainable environmental engineering worldwide. Our technology applies to over 60 different use cases, each of which can be developed into business models, licensing agreements, or export strategies. That's a scale you don't build overnight.

Presenter:
We were talking to SPRIND innovation manager Olav Carlsen earlier on. He said: The agency is set up to support companies throughout the entire process, especially crossing what he called the “valley of death.”

Roland Damann, Microbubbles
That's it, that's it. Definitely, you have to get through the valley of death of any innovation. When your only focus at the end of the tunnel is a lot of money you start sometimes to behave like Scrooge McDuck and you lose the focus of your work. We structured our work and received funding as a 100% subsidiary of the German Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation. They are a daughter from the German Federal Republic, and that made us theoretically a grandchild of the German government. That sounds amusing, but we take this responsibly very seriously. Our goal is not to push a technology into the market. It's to develop something so effective that it naturally creates demand.

Presenter:
Were there any conditions put upon you for working with SPRIND?

Roland Damann, Microbubbles
We're not allowed to commercially participate in the market due to state aid regulations. Other than that, we have standard governance Processes, regular review meetings, reporting obligations and financial oversight from a patent agency. So nothing totally different from other models. The support from SPRIND, if we can scale it from 1 to 10, I would give it a solid 12 because it allows us to be focused on, as I mentioned, on the long run. And we are preparing now our transition out of the state funding, which means defining concrete growth strategies and turning our vision into an operational mission. And moving from a startup to a fully fledged corporate entity is a major shift, but we've been preparing for it from day one. We have a strong IP strategy with two granted international patents from 2019 that protect our core technology. And additionally, we have further patent applications and the pipeline to continuously expand our protection.

Presenter:
Given that this is part of the whole funding idea – I guess you're also receiving support throughout this transition process?

Roland Damann, Microbubbles
Yes, of course. We get support in terms of legal advisory. We get tax advisory, we get HR support, we get hardware support for our office and scientific computer business. So they take all the odds of an entrepreneurship from us, so we can focus directly on the work to be done.

Presenter:
Are you in touch with potential partners, interested in using your technology?

Roland Damann, Microbubbles
With a big smile. Yes.As you probably know that there's one place on earth that absolutely devours tires for breakfast: It’s the German Autobahn. And we've just put pen to paper with these forward thinking guys at Autobahn GmbH, who run these glorious stretches of tarmac. And this summer will be out there, boots on the ground, gathering a vital baseline data and putting our in-situ technology through this places. And this is going to be the first application and business case.

Presenter:
Do you think it would have been possible to bring the technology to market without the support from SPRIND? Perhaps at a slower pace?

Roland Damann, Microbubbles
No. It wouldn’t be possible to write a story like this. I think I'm one of these researching entrepreneurs. I was only focused on innovation and solution. And so this is a breathtaking chance we received from SPRIND here.

Presenter: 
Apart from the SPRIND support program, would you say that Germany is a good place for innovative companies, especially those working on disruptive ideas?

Roland Damann, Microbubbles
Germany has an incredible ecosystem for innovation, but disruption requires scale, and we often say that Germany struggles with disruptive innovations. I don't think that's true. We just tend to think too small and get lost in detail. MP3 was a German invention, but it was the US market that turned it into a revolution. We simply failed to do it ourselves and let it slip out of our hands. And we need to regain that confidence. So our challenge is not just to innovate. It's to take our ideas where they can truly create an impact. That means embracing international markets and not being afraid to go global. SPRIND isn't just a support agency. It’s, well, like the ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide through the galaxy of innovation. More than just handing out a towel, it actively reshapes the way of breakthrough ideas to get the chance to become real game changers. And I think SPRIND is itself a towel. It absorbs uncertainty. It cleans up confusion. It is brilliantly disruptive in how it grants innovation, the rarest gift of all, a fitting chance to become innovative.

Presenter:
That’s a wonderfully vivid image: a towel soaking up insecurity and confusion. Many thanks Roland for sharing your experience. We are now continuing on a less disruptive path: As usual, before we say goodbye, we’ll take a look at HOW GERMANY WORKS.

HOW GERMANY WORKS
In addition to its national ministries, Germany has a number of federal agencies. They’re often subordinate to a ministry and usually have a narrowly defined focus. They can be organized as corporations under either public or private law, with the latter being referred to as a public company, a well-known example being the limited liability company or GmbH in German. The Federal Republic of Germany appears as a shareholder or owner. SPRIND is one example. Another is Germany Trade & Invest, the agency that brings you this podcast. And that’s how Germany works.

Presenter:
We've come to an end of another episode of Into Germany. If you’re planning to shake the world to its foundations or turn it on its head, don’t hesitate to get in touch with Germany Trade and Invest. We will be happy to advise you… all at no cost because – as you just heard – we’re a government agency. Get in touch at gtai.com. We’re also keen on your opinions, suggestions and questions. Please leave a comment in your favorite podcast app or drop us a line. You’ll find all the details in our show notes.

Agriculture and animal husbandry – the printing press – the steam engine – electricity – vaccines – motor vehicles – radio – television – MP3s - internet – smartphones – artificial intelligence

What will be the next great disruptive innovation? If we knew that, we’d be out placing bets. But we can say that in today’s rapidly changing world, disruptions are a given. And maybe there’s a big one ready to break in Germany. On that note – till next time, “Auf Wiederhören” and remember: Germany means business.