Overall, 29 start-ups were nominated. The team has now qualified to participate in “Stage Two,” the largest pan-European competition for start-ups from universities. Managing director Dr. Daniel Otero Baguer succeeded in a highly competitive field. His pitch convinced the audience of the start-up’s outstanding features and potential for positive social change.

aisencia GmbH analyzes digital microscope images of human tissue samples and then suggests diagnoses. aisencia’s AI model can already recognize over 40 diseases, which account for around 80 percent of day-to-day diagnoses in dermatopathology. For this, the founders collaborated with partner institutions, including the University Medical Center Essen and the University Hospital Bonn.

aisencia is a start-up from the University of Bremen’s Technomathematics working group led by Peter Maaß, professor at the Center for Industrial Mathematics. The project was funded by the EXIST program and supported throughout the entire process by “BRIDGE – Supporting Start-ups from Bremen Universities,” which is part of the UniTransfer unit.

The EXIST program is the Federal Government’s most successful and important funding instrument for academic start-ups. The beginnings of the program date back to the year 1998. To mark its 25th anniversary, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck awarded prizes to 15 candidates of the EXIST start-up factories on 6 June 2024: The universities of Bremen and Oldenburg received funding approval for their “Lighthouse Northwest” project for a nine-month development phase.