Austria kicks off CATAPULT competition

This week, EIT Health Austria launched the EIT Health CATAPULT pitch competition with the first European regional final of 2024 in Vienna.

Over 120 people joined the packed competition on Tuesday, September 24, in the Vienna Startup House to witness seven Austrian founders pitch to a panel of five experts: Marlis Baurecht, Nina Wöss, Wido Menhardt, Ashish Roy and Klaus Weinberger. Moderated by Melanie Hartl (Entrepreneurship Lead, EIT Health Austria), the event was organised in collaboration with AustrianStartups, who connect over 30,000 (future) founders, supporters, investors, curious minds, ecosystem organisations and policymakers in Austria.

Audience Award

While the semi-finalists of the European EIT Health Catapult competition will be announced in November, the audience chose their favourite via an instant online voting during the event: the winner of the EIT Health Austria Catapult Audience Award is Cellectric Biosciences!

The Viennese AIT spin-off is using electrodynamics, a completely different technology, to work with cells. The start-up is also being supported by aws on its way to becoming a successful business. With its first major use case, Cellectric recently launched pilot studies with the Vienna General Hospital and several companies. One of the startup’s devices is being used to diagnose blood poisoning (sepsis) much faster than was previously possible.

Do you want to find out more about the event? Check out and like this Linkedin post

Curious about the EIT Health Catapult programme? Click here

EIT Health Austria Catapult Audience Award Winner 2024: Cellectric Biosciences