Some of our spin-offs

Innovation throughout entrepreneurship

Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft’s mission is to develop new and innovative technologies for the economy and society. Spin-offs play a valuable and effective role as a bridge between the worlds of research and business—they are powerful catalysts for the transfer of innovation. By applying research findings to concrete business use cases, we lay the foundations for diverse developments. The right entrepreneurial spirit and business mindset, combined with scientific excellence, are the essential elements of a successful spin-off. For many years, Fraunhofer IGD has been a leading source of spin-offs within Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, encouraging innovation through entrepreneurship.

The researchers who work at Fraunhofer institutes are creative individuals who find ways to put good ideas into practice. It’s common for them to develop a new product or process, then found their own company to implement it. Fraunhofer is directly involved to a limited extent in startups of this kind. Sometimes customers of an innovation are also keen on partnering with the spinoff. This lets them participate in developing the technology further and reap long-term benefits. Typically, spinoffs remain in close touch with the Fraunhofer institute that spawned them. Based on their personal experience, spinoff founders appreciate the benefits of collaborative research, leverage their contacts, and are happy to continue working with Fraunhofer.

CONWEAVER

CONWEAVER is a spin-off of the Fraunhofer Institute. Its innovative Linksphere platform and its comprehensive data linking know-how enables its customers to quickly and flexibly configure intelligent graph solutions that make data relationships transparent, accessible and useful - for all linked data scenarios.

DESION

Desion GmbH offers AI-powered quality assurance systems for complex surfaces, including textiles, liquids and food. Their technology can be used for camera-based automation of quality assurance and sorting processes of objects with dynamically changing surfaces. By evaluating images and image sequences, defects, materials and quality deviations are recognized reliably, thereby ensuring a constant high quality. Desion was founded 2020 as a spinoff of Fraunhofer IGD and is located in Darmstadt, Germany.

DGG (Darmstadt Graphics Group)

DGG (Darmstadt Graphics Group) is a leading provider of 3D data optimization solutions. With applications ranging from virtual museums to 3D in e-commerce, DGG’s unique RapidCompact software is able to drastically speed up and facilitate a wide range of 3D data processing workflows. Given unoptimized, potentially large 3D models, DGG RapidCompact automatically generates optimized 3D versions for VR, AR or Web and mobile applications, within just a few seconds. Moreover, thanks to specialized algorithms and AI, it is able to accept high-level tasks such as “Create a 5MB version of this 1GB input data set.”. The foundation for this leading technology has been created during several years of research at Fraunhofer IGD.

exocad

exocad GmbH is a dynamic and innovative dental CAD/CAM software company committed to expanding the possibilities of digital dentistry and providing its distribution partners flexible, reliable, and easy-to-use software. exocad’s technology enables system integrators to turn equipment into comprehensive, class-leading solutions.
exocad was founded in 2010 as a spinoff of the world-renowned Fraunhofer Organization. At that time, Fraunhofer’s Dental CAD technology was transferred to exocad, where development has continued actively ever since. For over nine years, exocad’s dedicated team of engineers and researchers has consistently delivered state-of-the-art innovations to the dental industry.


Today, exocad has five offices worldwide, providing first-class service and technical support to its diversified network of partners and system integrators. exocad’s products are used in over 120 countries, and tens of thousands of dental professionals trust exocad’s technology.

MedCom

MedCom has been founded in 1997 originally as a spin-off of the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics IGD, the world expert R&D institution for Computer Graphics Technologies. Since 2006 MedCom is an entirely privately owned Company.


MedCom offers innovative and advanced imaging-based products with emphasis on cancer treatment, interventional & surgical navigation and specialized telemedicine solutions (trauma, military & special forces, rural areas, satellite). As an OEM company, MedCom delivers high-tech products to a large number of world-wide acting manufacturers of integrated clinical solutions as well as to high-end clinics in the research sector.

threedy GmbH

Threedy is a spin-off from Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research IGD in Darmstadt, Germany. It has now raised early-stage venture capital to commercialize its instant3Dhub platform. This platform primarily supports visualization, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) applications, and will initially serve companies in the automotive, aerospace and energy industries, as well as users of building information modeling (BIM) solutions. The investment is led by the Industrial Technologies fund of btov Partners, in association with High Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) and Fraunhofer.

Threedy’s instant3Dhub proprietary platform for high-performance visual computing enables customers to leverage 3D data of any volume or format on any device for a variety of applications. Building upon extensive Fraunhofer IGD research, the team of four company founders has successfully demonstrated a broad variety of use cases in manufacturing.

instant3Dhub can be easily integrated into existing PLM systems. It offers a wide range of features, e.g., for distributed collaboration in engineering processes, for VR and AR on assembly lines and in repair shops, for tracking moving objects using 3D models, and for offline operation of applications when stable online connections cannot be guaranteed. Leading German automotive OEMs already utilize Threedy’s flexible platform, and there is an attractive pipeline of new projects and use cases for 2021.

Thryve

Thryve's secure and scalable Wearable Healthcare API solution provides health data integration and analytics that empower insurers and healthcare providers globally to deliver personalized, preventive care with maximum data security and compliance.

uCORE

uCORE Systems GmbH develops technologies for spaces that think along with you. Our products combine artificial intelligence, building technology, and human-centered design to create a new class of digital assistance systems.

Verus Digital

Verus Digital, a spin-off of the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research IGD, offers companies and public institutions a unique method of 3D virtualization of artifacts: 3D scanners from Verus Digital use state-of-the-art technology to provide smart digital scanning and modeling of objects to customers around the world at just a fraction of the cost and time involved in previous methods. 

Visometry

VisionLib is an computer-vision tracking framework for Augmented Reality applications and tracking at industrial scale. It combines CAD with image processing and its multi-object tracking enables industry’s most essential AR  business cases across the value chain: from prototyping & production, over maintenance & training up to automated inspection systems & quality control.

Visometry is a Germany-based technology company and Fraunhofer spin-off. We create core Augmented Reality tracking technology, develop custom solutions and support our customers integrating AR and computer vision into their business. Our team summons over 15 years of know-how & expertise in AR.

wetransform

Wetransform GmbH is a spin-off of Fraunhofer IGD from Darmstadt, which was founded in 2014 by experienced software developers and innovation managers. Wetransform makes the design and implementation of open standards agile. Complex transformations, which have lasted days and weeks so far, become manageable and take only hours. Effort and costs are reduced accordingly. With the open platforms hale»connect and hale»studio, more than 1,000 users in Europe are already successfully implementing the INSPIRE directive for standardized geodata.