What is Plug and Play:

Plug and Play is a global innovation platform. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, they have built accelerator programs, corporate innovation services, and an in-house VC to make technological advancement progress faster than ever before.

Since inception in 2006, their programs have expanded worldwide to include a presence in 28 locations globally giving startups the necessary resources to succeed in Silicon Valley and beyond. With over 6,000 startups and 220 official corporate partners, they have created the ultimate startup ecosystem in many industries. They provide active investments with 200 leading Silicon Valley VCs and host more than 700 networking events per year. Companies in their community have raised over $7 billion in funding, with successful portfolio exits including Danger, Dropbox, LendingClub, PayPal.

In addition to investing, they run 14 industry-specific innovation programs – connecting their 250+ corporate partners to their startup ecosystem for pilots, licensing deals, strategic partnerships and investment opportunities. They started their Health focus in Silicon Valley in 2015 with Johnson and Johnson as the corporate sponsor. They have since grown that program to 16 partners including Novartis, AstraZeneca, Ascension Healthcare and Bayer. In 2017, Plug and Play expanded the program to Cleveland, in partnership with Cleveland Clinic, University Hospital and Philips and most recently to Munich in partnership with Roche and Sanofi. 

What is Startup Creasphere:

Established in 2018 by Roche and Plug and Play, Startup Creasphere is the first health-focused accelerator in Munich. Since then, the program has expanded to include Sanofi as a Founding Partner.

Startup Creasphere will run two batch programs annually where hundreds of startups from across the globe will be evaluated, and the most promising companies selected by the corporate partners to join each batch. Startup Creasphere focuses on all topics along the healthcare value chain including  Digital Service Solutions, Point of Care, Digital Biomarkers, Digital Imaging, Personalized Healthcare and consumer healthcare solutions across Allergy, Sleep and Nutrition.

Selected startups will work in the twelve-week program with subject matter experts and corporate mentors to explore market insights, strengthen their business model and potentially co-create solutions with corporate champions and pilot owners.

Program Dates: 

Deep Dive Week #1 – April 9-11th 
Deep Dive Week #2 – May 7-9th 
Deep Dive Week #3 – June 4-6th 
Expo – June 27th 

Batch 1 Expo Wrap Up

The deep dive weeks are opportunities for their ecosystem of corporates and investors to come to Munich and act as mentors to the program startups. From their mentors they ask for a 3 hour time commitment where mentors either select specific startups they would like to meet with or Plug and Play ask the startups to sign up for slots based on mentors expertise and bios. Mentors meet with each company for about 30 minutes and the session structure really varies based on what the startup’s needs are. Some do their sales pitch and get  feedback, some come with specific questions and some like to do it more conversational. 

In addition to the session, Plug and Play provides ample networking opportunities not only with the startups but the other mentors and corporate partners. They do a joint lunch for everyone and a meetup in the evening. 

The expo at the end of the program is their showcase of the progress the startups have made. The audience consists of 200-300 corporate executives, investors and entrepreneurs.