Founders, investors, mentors, and industry leaders gathered for the Frankfurt School Demo Day Winter ’26, marking the grand finale of the latest accelerator cohort. The evening showcased six high-potential pre-seed startups building across Energy Tech, AI, Frontier Tech, EdTech, HR Tech, and Enterprise AI. Organizers of the Demo Day is the Team behind the Frankfurt School Entrepreneurship Centre, including Ram Shoham, Kristina Savina and Gowtham.

More than just a pitch event, Demo Day once again proved to be a powerful meeting point for experienced operators, investors, and emerging founders. The room was defined by exchange, collaboration, and meaningful connections, reinforcing the community that supports startups far beyond the stage.

First Place, €30,000: UpGrid (Energy Tech)

UpGrid from Zurich secured first place and €30,000 for its decentralized energy market infrastructure. The company is building the operating system for local energy ecosystems and enables communities to coordinate, trade, and monetize clean energy. With more than 1,300 registered users, over 80 energy communities, and CHF 100,000 in first-year revenue, UpGrid is currently raising CHF 1.2 million, with 90 percent already committed.

Second Place, €20,000: LILY (Frontier Tech)

Second place and €20,000 went to LILY from Mannheim, a next-generation decentralized computing platform. LILY replaces traditional cloud complexity with a logic-native architecture that unifies software, AI, and hardware into one seamless system. Following a validated proof of concept and a confirmed enterprise pilot, LILY is now raising its pre-seed round.

The Winter ’26 Cohort

Alongside the winners, four additional startups presented their progress and vision:

• LeadRep AI (Sales, AI) automates the full B2B outbound sales workflow, from lead sourcing to personalized outreach and meeting booking.
• Sidetracked Day (EdTech, AI) is a hyper-personalized learning platform that adapts explanations and exercises to each student through long-term learner modeling.
• Talero AI (HR Tech, AI) is a gamified AI platform that measures real behavior to generate data-driven personality and career-fit insights.
• Cellyn (Enterprise AI) provides an AI execution layer for financial teams and automates workflows across valuation, deal flow, and corporate finance.

Previous FS Demo Days

Twice per year, the Entrepreneurship Centre at Frankfurt School organizes the big Demo Day. Read here about the previous Demo Days at Frankfurt School (2025, 2024, 2023): https://station-frankfurt.de/category/frankfurt-school-entrepreneurship-center/

Want to meet the team

REGISTER HERE: https://entrepreneurship-centre.fs.de/event/open-workshop-founders-and-friends-community-get-together/

On March 4, join us for our Friends & Founders Community Get-Together and ask us any questions you might have:
*How can I get in touch with you?
*What is an Idea Talk?
*Do you charge for your services?
…and anything else you’d like to know!

Location: FS Entrepreneurship Centre, 1st Floor, Presidialbau at Frankfurt School of Finance & Management
Time: 18:30 – 20:30

🍕🍻Pizza & beer are on us 🙂