garage33, the Paderborn University's start-up centre, supports start-ups in finding investors and securing the necessary capital. One of its most recent successes is the technology start-up ONE WARE, which emerged from the OWL University of Applied Sciences (TH OWL) and was further developed at garage33. The young company recently received funding totalling 2.5 million euros from the technology investor Cusp Capital from Essen. In total, start-ups from the garage33 ecosystem have raised over 87 million euros since 2019.
From EXIST start-up grant to million-euro investment
The idea for ONE WARE, PLC ONE, was born in September 2022 when Leon Beier and Leo Wiegand were studying Electrical Engineering at TH OWL. There, the two succeeded in laying the foundation for their technology, thanks in part to the EXIST start-up grant and the support of the Campus Foundery OWL start-up centre. "We later took advantage of the numerous offers from garage33 and developed our idea through various programmes and competitions until it was ready for the market," explains Wiegand, co-founder of ONE WARE GmbH. The start-up pursues a technologically and ecologically innovative approach: with the help of software for generating artificial intelligence (AI) or AI models, for example, it enables high-precision industrial automation that adapts flexibly to a wide variety of applications and hardware, thus upgrading even older generations of industrial chips and making them real-time capable. In this way, ONE WARE opens up new perspectives for resource-saving and efficient cross-industry production.
Cusp Capital has invested in the garage33 ecosystem for the second time after the AI software development company acto in 2024 as part of a news financing round. "ONE WARE is an outstanding example of the innovation potential that exists in North Rhine-Westphalia and in East Westphalia-Lippe in particular," says Jan Sessenhausen from Cusp Capital. "The region is developing into a real hotspot for deep-tech start-ups alongside the Ruhr region. We are delighted to be able to actively support this development as an investor."
Record figures for the garage33 start-up ecosystem
Since 2019, garage33 has supported a total of 43 start-ups, which together have acquired more than 87 million euros in capital. In 2024 alone, eleven teams secured investments, with both initial and follow-up financing being concluded. The trend remains positive in 2025: since January, six more start-ups have already convinced investors with their business models. The exit of the start-ups saasmetrix and ladeplan is particularly noteworthy. While the software provider saasmetrix has already been acquired by USU GmbH, the e-mobility start-up ladeplan will in future be part of the European market leader RetailSonar from Belgium. In addition, twelve start-ups are currently actively fundraising, which underlines the high dynamism and continuous growth of the ecosystem.
This text was translated automatically.
