By Tor Bagger, AAU Communication & Public Affairs.
Translated by LeeAnn Iovanni, AAU Communication & Public Affairs

Three quarters of a million kroner will help three of tomorrow's entrepreneurial companies advance in the world after another round of the AAU Startup Grant supported by the Obel Family Foundation was awarded the other day. The grant of DKK 250,000, which is awarded twice a year to a total of six annual recipients, helps entrepreneurs from Aalborg University take their startups to the next level and create a viable business.

The three recipients this time are the companies SafeSpot, Blue Harvest Technologies and Maprova. The latter is currently housed in one of the "garages" in the AAU Innovate building where students with entrepreneurial dreams can get space, advice and networking help to turn a good idea into a promising company. Maprova was founded by Andreas Krog Nielsen and Hans Thoft Rasmussen who when receiving the AAU Startup Grant also submitted their Master's thesis in the Business Technology programme. The business idea arose in the Master’s programme where they were involved with BM Byggeindustri A/S in Hobro.

The three recipients this time are the companies SafeSpot, Blue Harvest Technologies and Maprova. The latter is currently housed in one of the "garages" in the AAU Innovate building where students with entrepreneurial dreams can get space, advice and networking help to turn a good idea into a promising company. Maprova was founded by Andreas Krog Nielsen and Hans Thoft Rasmussen who when receiving the AAU Startup Grant also submitted their Master's thesis in the Business Technology programme. The business idea arose in the Master’s programme where they were involved with BM Byggeindustri A/S in Hobro.

"We were in a project group that was supposed to map, document and come up with proposals for production optimizations at BM Byggeindustri, but along the way we discovered that our optimization proposals could not be supported by data because the data simply didn’t exist," explains Hans Thoft Rasmussen, COO Maprova.

"So in the next semester, we arranged a new project collaboration with BM and started developing a data collection platform."

Subsequently, they founded the company Maprova and spent time both developing the idea and commercializing the system, as well as expanding the team so that today they are six employees including software developers, salespeople, designers and marketers. The basic idea is to give companies the opportunity to easily collect data about their production, processes and services via a simple app or screens in the workplace. It is about time registrations and status of tasks, so that, for example, a construction company has a better overview of the various processes. For example, it could be a company producing shower stalls that needs data on how long it takes to install wall cladding or flooring. The data collected is used for things like quality assurance, predictions, price estimations and production optimization.

Once the two founders graduate at the end of June, they will work on the Maprova project full-time.

"We’re doing this on a meagre salary of 8000 kroner as it follows the state education grant. After all, we have lived on less for five years so far. The funds from the AAU Startup Grant go to future-proofing and capital expansion, and they are an essential part of covering our salary costs," explains Hans Thoft Rasmussen.

Since 2008, 1069 companies have been established by students and graduates from Aalborg University. There are 1488 staff employed in AAU-based entrepreneurial companies with a total regional GDP in Northern Jutland of approximately DKK 1.6 billion (2021 figures according to the IRIS Group report "Aalborg University as a North Jutland development engine").

CONTACT:

Press contact: Tor Bagger. Journalist, AAU Communication & Public Affairs. Tel. +45 30 17 31 65, toba@adm.aau.dk

AAU Innovation: Kim Rathcke Jensen. Strategic Advisor, AAU. Tel. +45 61 96 71 66, kiraje@adm.aau.dk