CarbonCapture Startup Challenge
Climate change and the reduction of greenhouse gas emission are among the greatest challenges of our time. At Bosch Business Innovations, we believe that the key to a sustainable future lies in cutting-edge technology and creative thinking.
The CarbonCapture Startup Challenge is designed to compete with today’s global challenges. It is dedicated to nurturing innovative business ideas enabling a circular carbon economy.
Seize the moment and take the opportunity to create a climate-positive future. Let’s team up to transform emissions into solutions – together.
Understanding Carbon Capturing
In recent decades, progress in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions has been limited, despite growing awareness of the urgent need to address climate change. While efforts to reduce emissions through renewable energy adoption, energy efficiency improvements, and changes in land use have made strides, they have not been sufficient to reach the levels needed to avoid the worst impacts of global warming. To tackle these challenges, a variety of approaches must be pursued.
In context of the Startup Challenge, we draw attention to the areas of carbon dioxide removal, which targets the atmosphere or large point sources, such as industrial plants. These sources remain significant contributors to global emissions. Carbon capture technologies, such as direct air capture (DAC) and carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS), have garnered considerable attention, but the potential for scaling these technologies remains a critical concern.
In this context, we aim to consider the entire value chain of carbon dioxide — from capture to utilization, storage, or accounting and trading emissions. By leveraging several solution approaches, we can achieve a holistic strategy that addresses the challenges of mitigating emissions while also fostering sustainable, long-term solutions for our climate goals.
Focus areas
We are looking for bold ideas and solutions in the following areas:
Direct air capture (DAC) technologies remove CO2 directly from the atmosphere at any location, in contrast to carbon capture, which typically occurs at the point of emissions, like a steel plant. The captured CO2 can either be permanently stored in deep geological formations or utilized for various applications.
CCUS encompasses the capture of CO2, typically from major point sources such as power plants or industrial facilities that burn either fossil fuels or biomass. If the captured CO2 is not utilized on-site, it is compressed and transported via pipeline, ship, rail, or truck to be used in various applications or injected into deep geological formations, such as depleted oil and gas reservoirs or saline aquifers.
The carbon dioxide value chain can encompass a range of solutions, including carbon accounting for tracking emissions, carbon trading systems for buying and selling emission allowances, and the management of emission certificates to ensure compliance with regulatory standards and facilitate carbon reduction efforts.
Unlock your potentials – what’s in it for you?
Participating in our startup challenge offers numerous benefits and opportunities that can enhance your project as well as professional growth. Validate your problem-solution fit and make your business idea investment-ready. Here’s what you gain:
Develop your idea with Bosch.
Validate your problem-solution fit, backed with diverse support, expertise, and resources of a global technology leader.
Receive budget to validate your idea.
Get 15.000 EUR budget to validate your ideas. Test your problem-solution fit in three months.
Tap into expert knowledge:
Benefit from Bosch expert workshops and mentoring sessions designed to refine your business idea.
Access industry experts and early-stage investors:
Get valuable insights from our global network partners and investors.
Enhance your entrepreneurial skills:
Improve your soft and hard skills, get tangible feedback, and create real-world impact.
Become part of our ecosystem:
Gain visibility and create new opportunities and collaborations with us.
By joining our startup challenge, you will not only advance your business case but also elevate your professional journey, making a meaningful impact on a climate-positive future.
How to get started – application criteria
Getting started is straightforward and designed to be inclusive for a wide range of innovators. To apply, ensure that your team and idea meet the following pre-requirements:
A team of 2-4 motivated members with different skills and competencies is ideal. A multidisciplinary team with cohesive dynamics can bring in different perspectives and expertise to help develop and validate your idea.
Your idea should have the potential to be validated for problem-solution fit within three months. This means that it should be possible to test and iterate on the problem-solution fit as quickly as possible.
We are looking for early-stage tech startups in pre-seed to seed stage.
Your start-up should already be a legal entity. This ensures that you have the formal structure required to obtain funding and enter partnerships.
By meeting these pre-requirements, you position your team and idea for success in the Startup Challenge, ensuring that you can fully leverage the resources, mentorship, and opportunities provided by Bosch Business Innovations.
Note: Bosch employees can find the corresponding internal campaign for this call in the Innovation App i³ via the intranet.
The timeline:
- Deadline for applications | Feb. 28, 2025
- Selection and evaluation | March 1 – March 21, 2025
- Validation program | April 1 – June 15, 2025
The program
Join our virtual three month validation program
We offer a comprehensive, agile three-month validation program designed to guide you from early-stage ideas to a data-driven validation of user problems and solutions. Our program includes workshops, mentoring, and coaching sessions, focusing on key areas such as problem definitions, UX design, validation techniques, and value proposition development. Through peer coaching formats and individualized mentoring, we ensure that your startup idea is aligned with real user needs and delivers meaningful value.
Validate and supercharge your early-stage startup idea with Bosch Business Innovations
Frequently Asked Questions
We are particularly looking for external early-stage start-ups (pre-seed, seed stage) with existing legal entity.
Bosch employees are excluded from the external challenge and have the opportunity to apply for the internal campaign on the intranet. Get in touch with our internal campaign manager, Guilherme Rocamora, if you have questions right away.
We put great emphasis on innovative solutions in the areas of Direct Air Capture (DAC) and Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS). In addition, we are interested in any other concept within the value chain to reduce, recycle, store, or manage carbon dioxide emissions.
Our criteria are simple: we focus on the team and its dynamics as well as the idea potential itself. In the beginning, it is crucial that submitted start-up concepts are validated as quickly as possible. This means that problem-solution fit can be validated in a maximum of three months.
The program can be carried out digitally. There is no obligation to be on site at one of our locations during the specified period.
Our CarbonCapture Startup Challenge is designed to be inclusive for a wide range of global innovators. There is no regional limitation. Find out more about our international locations.
