KfW Start-up Award 2023

The KfW Award for Start-ups honours innovative companies from all over Germany. The prizes were awarded at a festive award ceremony in Berlin. One company per federal state was honoured.

thermal DRONES GmbH uses artificial intelligence (AI) and drones to help protect wildlife on agricultural land. Founder Dr Martin Israel is a specialist in drone-based wildlife rescue. Together with Tobias Dahms, he founded the company in 2020 as a spin-off from the German Aerospace Centre (DLR). Together with their team, they are working to save fawns, hares and ground-nesting birds from death during the harvest of agricultural land. Their habitat is fields and farmland, and when these are harvested, more than 500,000 wild animals die every year in Germany alone.

thermal DRONES is a technology leader in the field of drone-based wildlife search with customers throughout Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Using drones and specially developed software, the company’s customers can track down wild animals efficiently and reliably.

New business areas for the company, which specialises in AI-based drone solutions for monitoring and surveillance of agricultural and open spaces, include photovoltaic inspection, people search and hot spot detection.

Dr Martin Israel: “thermal DRONES offers effective and highly efficient tools for wildlife conservation and is also a shining example of how innovative technologies and artificial intelligence can contribute to more efficient use of resources and more sustainable agriculture. In addition, our company enables meaningful engagement and contributes to the creation of new jobs in rural areas. We are delighted that this has been recognised with the KfW Award for Start-ups.“

The winners were selected in a multi-stage process by an experienced jury comprising experts from KfW, development institutions, business, politics and the media. They assessed the business ideas according to their degree of innovation, creativity and commitment to social and environmental responsibility.

More information about the KfW Start-up Award can be found here: www.kfw.de