Our employee Dr. Petra Gospodnetić has been working in the »Image Processing« department at the Fraunhofer ITWM since an internship during her studies. Now she is being supported by AHEAD – the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft's technology transfer program – in founding a start-up. She successfully completed the first phase of the program and even got a prize with her team.
In addition to funded freedom, the AHEAD program offers intensive entrepreneurship training on business fundamentals – combined with extensive mentoring and coaching as well as support in legal matters.
In this interview, Dr. Petra Gospodnetić talks about her spin-off and the support she received from the AHEAD program.
AHEAD advises start-up researchers on how to prepare and develop their project in the key areas of »team, market, product and institution« for a successful technology transfer. In the »Colab« variant, cooperation with other institutions is also supported if Fraunhofer technology is to be integrated into the company's own products.
In addition to funded freedom, the AHEAD program offers intensive entrepreneurship training on business fundamentals – combined with extensive mentoring and coaching as well as support in legal matters.
In this interview, Dr. Petra Gospodnetić talks about her spin-off and the support she receives from the AHEAD program.
Yes, with pleasure. My spin-off is a cooperation with the start-up Medabsy. We are working together on software for virtual inspection planning and synthetic data generation. In concrete terms, this means that if you want to set up a visual inspection system, we help you plan where cameras need to be placed and what lighting is required to reliably detect defects. This is the part that the start-up Medabsy takes on. The Fraunhofer ITWM provides the technology for synthetic data generation – in other words, photorealistic textures and effects based on physically based parameters. This allows us to simulate realistic cracks or dents, for example for the production of metal parts.
We have successfully completed the first phase. The aim of this phase was to validate the idea: Is there a market? Who are the potential customers? How big is the market potential? In phase two, we are now developing a go-to-market strategy, talking to potential customers and planning initial pilot projects.
Yes, we received the award for the best pitch at the end of the first phase in April 2025. That was a nice acknowledgement of the effort we put into our project.
It's hard to pick out a single highlight because the whole program is incredibly supportive. The employees are really passionate about what they do. The »AHEAD Connect« format – a kind of speed dating with potential investors and partners – was particularly helpful for us. That opened a lot of doors for us.
What I particularly appreciate is the change of perspective that AHEAD enables. As a researcher, I often only think about solutions to problems. AHEAD teaches us to see the business side as well: Who has the problem in the first place? Is there a market for it? And they do this in a very structured, but also personal and motivating way. You get a 360-degree view – from the presentation to business planning and legal issues. That is extremely valuable.
Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics ITWM