Winning the HERMES Startup Award 2026 was a major highlight. What does this award mean for BTRY, and what feedback have you received from customers and partners at the trade fair?

The HERMES Startup Award was a real highlight for us. The award was presented on one of the world’s largest trade fair stages, in front of decision-makers from politics and business, such as Friedrich Merz and Lula da Silva. This has given BTRY enormous visibility. People asked us about it every day at our stand; naturally, the trophy took centre stage, clearly visible to all. The response was strong even beyond the trade fair. For a young company like BTRY, it is precisely this recognition that is so valuable: it builds trust with customers and partners and confirms that our technology is striking a real chord.

As a young company, access to industry decision-makers is essential. How did HANNOVER MESSE help you draw the attention of industry giants to your technology?

HANNOVER MESSE brings the entire industrial value chain together in one place. The relevant decision-makers are there in person and open to new technologies, which makes direct dialogue easy. Within just a few days, you can strike up a conversation with contacts who would otherwise require months of lead time. Our victory in the Startup Tech Race and the Hermes Award have opened further doors and garnered us a level of attention that we, as a start-up, would otherwise find difficult to achieve. This enabled us to win over industry giants directly, through face-to-face conversations and with the product in hand.

Which specific innovations and use cases generated the most interest at your stand, and what does that say about the current needs of the industry?

We’re developing the world’s thinnest battery. It’s just 0.1 mm thick yet delivers extremely high performance. The greatest interest was shown in applications within the IoT and medical technology sectors, where today’s batteries are simply too thick, too rigid or too heavy: medical patches for continuous vital signs monitoring, smart contact lenses, connected hearing aids and ultra-thin trackers for seamless monitoring of cold chains and logistics. Even in consumer electronics such as headphones or smartwatches, the battery is often the limiting factor today – and that is precisely what we are solving. This clearly demonstrates that devices are becoming smaller, smarter and more connected, and that power supply has become a critical bottleneck across the entire industry. Anyone offering a solution here opens up entirely new design possibilities.

HANNOVER MESSE is regarded as a key source of inspiration. What milestones lie up next for BTRY, and what insights will you take away from this year’s trade fair discussions are you taking away with you?

Just this month, we were successful in the EIC Accelerator, one of the EU’s most competitive funding programmes. The next major milestone is scaling up our production so that we can meet growing customer demand as quickly as possible. Above all, we’ve taken away one key confirmation from the trade fair discussions: the need for small, high-performance batteries is real and urgent. This reinforces our resolve to invest consistently in industrialisation now.