Landshut/ Nurem­berg — Bayern Kapi­tal, one of the most expe­ri­en­ced and active inves­tors in the German high-tech finan­cing land­scape, and the seed fund BORN2GROW, which specia­li­zes in high-growth start-ups in pionee­ring tech­no­lo­gies, are jointly inves­t­ing in trap­lin­ked. The Nure­m­­berg-based start-up deve­lops perma­nent moni­to­ring systems and networked traps for the control and moni­to­ring of rats, mice, insects and other pests. Seve­ral busi­ness angels are also invol­ved in the invest­ment, which totals EUR 2.3 million.

trap­lin­ked GmbH was foun­ded in 2019 by Tim Kirch­hof in Nurem­berg and produ­ces remo­tely moni­to­red auto­ma­tic pest traps as well as accom­pany­ing soft­ware that covers all the office work of a pest control­ler, from infe­sta­tion and treat­ment docu­men­ta­tion to deploy­ment route plan­ning and moni­to­ring to invoi­cing. The idea for the start-up matu­red while the foun­der was a student trai­nee at a pest control company. Here Kirch­hof reco­gni­zed the enorm­ous poten­tial for auto­ma­ting work proces­ses, which lay parti­cu­larly in the daily mono­to­nous work with trap boxes in which no catches were recorded.

With the combi­na­tion of wire­less commu­ni­ca­tion and sensor tech­no­logy, trap­lin­ked has since contri­bu­ted signi­fi­cantly to the digi­tiza­tion of the pest control indus­try. The JERRY and TOM smart sensor modu­les moni­tor and docu­ment the condi­tion of trap boxes with real-time noti­fi­ca­ti­ons across multi­ple sites, making impact traps a time- and cost-effec­­tive control method for pests of all kinds. This can signi­fi­cantly reduce food loss, the spread of dise­ase, and the use of contro­ver­sial poison baits ridd­led with draw­backs and risks.

So far, trap­lin­ked has sold more than 55,000 sensor modu­les across Europe. The new finan­cial resour­ces will be used to drive forward the inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion stra­tegy and to expand the hard­ware — parti­cu­larly in the areas of connec­ti­vity and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence for auto­ma­tic data analy­sis. Another focus is on mone­tiz­ing the in-house trap­lin­ked software.

Daniel Peli­kan, CEO of trap­lin­ked, comm­ents: “The hard­ware was our market entry. We have imple­men­ted this very successfully. With the fresh capi­tal, we now put the focus on soft­ware. Our goal is to gene­rate around 1,000,000 ARR by 2024.”

Manuel Böhrin­ger (Photo © Manuel Böhrin­ger), invest­ment mana­ger of BORN2GROW adds: “The market poten­tial in pest control is huge. We are convin­ced to revo­lu­tio­nize the market for digi­tal pest control toge­ther with the strong foun­ding team of traplinked.”

“Limi­ting pest effects is beco­ming incre­asingly important and at the same time more diffi­cult in the context of global warm­ing,” comm­ents Monika Steger, mana­ging direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal. “By elimi­na­ting poison bait and other toxics, trap­lin­ked is taking a sustainable approach to working at the cutting edge here, which is why we’re happy to support the company with our investment.”

About trap­lin­ked Gmbh

trap­lin­ked deve­lops digi­tal solu­ti­ons for pest control. Networked beat traps and the trap­lin­ked app save pest control opera­tors time and enable them to provide outstan­ding service to their custo­mers in all indus­tries. The goal: to make stri­ker traps a time- and cost-effi­ci­ent control method. Curr­ently, the use of traps is asso­cia­ted with high person­nel costs, as they must be checked daily. This is where traplinked’s digi­tal solu­tion comes in: A combi­na­tion of wire­less commu­ni­ca­tion and sensor tech­no­logy moni­tors and docu­ments pest infe­sta­ti­ons, even across multi­ple loca­ti­ons. www.traplinked.com

About BORN2GROW

BORN2GROW (B2G) is a Heil­­bronn-based and inter­na­tio­nally active seed fund that focu­ses on invest­ments in high-growth start­ups in forward-looking tech­no­lo­gies such as Life Scien­ces, Clean­Tech, Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence & Machine Lear­ning, IoT, Hard­ware & Robo­tics, and Soft­ware. B2G was foun­ded in 2013 and supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies with capi­tal, know-how and its exten­sive network. Since its incep­tion, the fund has actively supported more than 25 port­fo­lio compa­nies. B2G works toge­ther with other VC funds and busi­ness angels. B2G is a subsi­diary of ZFHN Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn, a family office that focu­ses on networ­king acti­vi­ties and invest­ments in the Heil­­bronn-Fran­ken region. In this context, the coope­ra­tion between natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal start-ups and medium-sized compa­nies from the region is inten­si­fied. www.born2grow.de

About Bayern Kapital

Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, based in Lands­hut, is the venture/growth capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria. It accom­pa­nies inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies in the Free State through various growth phases, from seed to later stage, with equity capi­tal in the amount of 0.25 to 25 million euros. Bayern Kapi­tal often fills gaps in the VC sector in proven consor­tium constel­la­ti­ons with private inves­tors (busi­ness angels, family offices and corpo­rate ventures).

Bayern Kapi­tal mana­ges specia­li­zed invest­ment funds with a volume of around 700 million euros. Since its foun­da­tion in 1995 on the initia­tive of the state govern­ment, the wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern has so far inves­ted around 400 million euros of its own equity capi­tal in around 300 start-ups and scale-ups in sectors such as life scien­ces, soft­ware & IT, mate­ri­als & new mate­ri­als, nano­tech­no­logy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. As a result, more than 8,000 jobs have been perma­nently crea­ted in Bava­ria in sustainable compa­nies. The active port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 80 companies.

Examp­les of nume­rous ground­brea­king success stories that Bayern Kapi­tal has been invol­ved in early on include EOS (today the world’s leading tech­no­logy provi­der in indus­trial 3D prin­ting of metals and plas­tics), Proglove, Fazua, SimS­cale, Scom­pler, egym, Parcel­lab, Cobrai­ner, Quan­tum Systems, Casavi, Theva, Riskme­thods, Tubu­lis, Cata­lym, Immu­nic, Sirion and many more.
www.bayernkapital.de