Cologne, October 7th, 2020. The Cologne-based blockchain company UBIRCH has successfully stood its ground in front of an international jury and will participate in the German Accelerator Program starting today. For the winners of the current selection round, an intensive program with workshops, individual mentoring and networking events will begin in October. The German Accelerator is a program sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy that enables start-ups to make the big leap across the pond to present their business model to an international audience in New York, San Francisco or Silicon Valley as well as in Southeast Asia.

Stephan Noller, CEO and co-founder of UBIRCH: "We are very excited to participate in the German Accelerator Program, one of the most successful programs to help companies accelerate their entry into the U.S. market. It is an excellent opportunity for us to successfully advance the market entry into the USA in the course of our internationalization". By participating in the program, UBIRCH plans to further optimize their offer in order to adapt to the American market requirements with the goal to increase visibility by expanding press and marketing contacts and ideally to find an investor in order to scale faster internationally.

"On its way to the USA, UBIRCH can rely on the support of the German Accelerator. Through the intensive cooperation with our mentors and their network, contacts to US investors, potential customers and partners, we offer the participating start-ups the ideal conditions to successfully expand into the American market," explains Christian Busch, Program CEO German Accelerator New York.

Since the program is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy, UBIRCH and the other participants do not have to give up company shares or pay a participation fee. The preselection for the German Accelerator Final is made based on an online application. In order to participate, the company must convincingly present its business idea, status and outlook. The online application is supplemented by selection interviews with various mentors who will later supervise the start-ups in the USA. From all applications, the most promising companies for the respective program in the USA or in Southeast Asia are selected in a final pitch round. Since its launch in 2012, the German Accelerator has already supported more than 280 start-ups in their international expansion, including Celonis, N26, Proglove and Yfood.

About the German Accelerator:

The German Accelerator supports the most promising German start-ups in their international expansion. At the innovation locations San Francisco, Silicon Valley, New York, Boston and Singapore, our team of experienced experts and mentors actively supports the selected companies with local know-how and various intensive workshop and training programs. Program participants also receive free office space and direct access to our global network of partners and investors. Our programs are tailored to the individual needs of each start-up to help them successfully enter international markets. We do not take any company shares and our offers are free of charge – with the exception of "Next Step", our "Market Discovery Program" for the Asian region. Since its launch in 2012, more than 270 start-ups have successfully completed one of our programs and have received more than $4.9 billion in funding to date. The German Accelerator is operated by German Entrepreneurship GmbH and supported by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy (BMWi). Further information is available at www.germanaccelerator.com.

About UBIRCH:

UBIRCH is the specialist for blockchain-based security technology in the field of IoT with locations in Cologne, Berlin, Munich and Tel Aviv. The team consists of experienced specialists in cryptography, blockchain and data-driven business models. Consisting of an extremely lightweight client for sensor firmware and the matching cloud backend, UBIRCH's "Blockchain for Things" solution enables military-grade data protection to deliver new business models for IoT.

The UBIRCH solution works similar to sealing a contract at the office of a sworn-in notary. The seal can still be broken and the contract changed but not without leaving traces (tamper evidence), and if these traces are detected, the original document can be retrieved from the notary’s archive for comparison. Innovative cryptography and blockchain technologies guarantee the trustworthiness of IoT data. While most other IoT security solutions focus on securing the transmission channel and/or the device, UBIRCH focuses on securing the IoT data-packets individually. The advantage and USP of this approach are pervasiveness, warranted authenticity and order of sequence as the security is attached to the data-packets with these interlinked in a blockchain. They are always secured – even if they have been transmitted over non-secure channels.

UBIRCH technology – deployable as software or on SIM-cards – is aimed primarily at customers in the industrial, smart cities, insurance, healthcare, IoT start-ups, energy supply, and logistics segments. Further information is available www.ubirch.com