Munich - air up secu­res 7‑figure invest­ment and successfully enters the market. Sold out in the mean­time and sales that please inves­tors — the successful launch in online and retail of air up ’s “scen­ted drin­king bottle” was prece­ded by a 7‑figure exten­ded seed round prepared by the BayStartUP inves­tor network. Stephan Huber, mana­ging direc­tor of the Munich-based phar­maceu­ti­cal company Denk Pharma, acts as lead inves­tor. The FRe UG of NavVis foun­der Dr. Felix Reins­ha­gen and private inves­tor Carl-Clau­­dius Rosen­gar­ten also parti­ci­pate. The inves­tors from the first finan­cing round, Ralf Dümmel, Chris­toph Miller and Frank Thelen, remain on board. The team had met its lead inves­tor at one of the three BayStartUP Venture Confe­ren­ces 2019 — exclu­sive inves­tor panels where selec­ted start­ups present their solu­ti­ons. Last year, parti­ci­pa­ting teams were able to raise a total of more than 30 million euros in capi­tal through the series of events.

With air up’s tech­no­logy, you perceive flavor even though you’re only drin­king water: the drin­king system can flavor water only via scent. This crea­tes flavor without any other addi­ti­ves or calo­ries. “Some ideas are so obvious and yet no one has yet come up with the idea of pack­a­ging taste sensa­tion through retro­na­sal smel­ling into an inno­va­tive product,” says Harald Wagner, head of finan­cing coaching at BayStartUP.

The prelude for talks with lead inves­tor Stephan Huber and for his invest­ment in the company was one of BayStartUP’s Venture Confe­ren­ces in March 2019: “air up convin­ced me with its inno­va­tive product and its strong team. I was parti­cu­larly impres­sed that the team mana­ged to gain access to key play­ers in the beverage indus­try in a very short time. This enab­led it to stra­te­gi­cally place its products with manu­fac­tu­r­ers and retail­ers — an outstan­ding achie­ve­ment!” air up intends to invest the newly acqui­red capi­tal in marke­ting, company deve­lo­p­ment and product deve­lo­p­ment in order to make the brand even better known and to retain custo­mers in the long term. “In the next few months, we want to show that air up is accepted by custo­mers in the market and that our user promise appeals precis­ely to users,” says Fabian Schlang, co-foun­­der, food tech­no­lo­gist and nutri­tion expert.