Munich at SXSW 2026

The Munich delegation will be led by Dr. Christian Scharpf, Head of the City's Department of Labor and Economic Development, and will bring together startups, established companies, university representatives, creatives and a team from the City of Munich.

This year, the City of Munich and Munich Startup are again partners at the German Haus, which will host a diverse program of panels, pitches, networking events and music showcases from 12-16 March at Speakeasy, 412 Congress Avenue. For the full schedule at German Haus, visit www.german-haus.com.

In addition, this year on 14 March, there will be a dedicated Munich House at the German-Texan Heritage Society, 507 East 10th Street, which is presented by Munich Startup in cooperation with munich business and various partners. The Munich House program can be found at www.munich-haus.com.

Together with Munich Startup, munich business is supporting six startups that were selected in an application process last year. The following startups were selected and will be part of the Munich delegation:

Caldo Worldwide is a digital-nomadic art platform working with contemporary artists at the intersection of art and technology to develop and distribute innovative exhibitions, projects, and artworks to global audiences. Caldo Worldwide work closely with artists who use code, AI models, game engines, and biotechnology as core creative materials to imagine future scenarios and reflect on how we live with technology.

enna is a health- and care-focused family platform that enables people with low digital literacy – especially seniors and individuals with care needs – to access digital health, communication and support services in a radically simple way. At its core is a patented haptic interface: a tablet is operated via physical NFC cards, eliminating touchscreens, menus and technical barriers.

Family members manage communication, daily organization and increasingly health- and care-related services such as telemedicine, safety features, reminders and AI-supported assistance via the enna app. enna combines hardware, software and services into a scalable AgeTech and CareTech platform with strong social impact. Founded in Munich, enna is growing rapidly and actively preparing for international expansion, including the U.S. healthcare and care ecosystem.

Lynkt builds the missing infrastructure layer for enterprise AI: The Business Logic Layer.

The Problem: 70% of enterprise AI projects fail—not because models aren't good enough, but because AI can't access business logic: the rules, exceptions, processes, and tribal knowledge that make every company unique. Teams spend 6-12 months manually coding this logic into each AI project. The result: 8 months lost per project, 70% never reach production, and logic must be rebuilt from scratch for every new application.

The Solution: Lynkt creates a novel horizontal layer that continuously learns from three sources: existing systems, human experts, and AI interactions. This collective intelligence is automatically captured, maintained, and kept outside models—making it reusable and ensuring enterprises are never locked into vendor platforms.

The Impact: Companies deploy AI projects 10x faster, achieve 94% accuracy (vs. 48% baseline), and maintain full control over their most valuable asset: their business logic.

Nexus Politics is a Civic/GovTech startup developing an operating system for digital democracy to address political dissatisfaction through integrated participation and governance tools. Citizens can submit issues, transparently track their status, and actively support issues. Politicians can work on issues, run polls, analyze public opinion, and present themselves through a public profile. The project is supported, among others, by the Technical University of Munich, the City of Munich, Social Impact Republic, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, and the European Social Fund Plus.

PULSETRAIN extends battery life by up to 80 % and improves sustainability. They demonstrate how to reduce replacement and maintenance costs, optimize battery usage and performance for efficient energy use and enhanced functionality. PULSETRAIN has developed a breakthrough solution that combines the latest semiconductor technology and AI-based software to extend the life of electric vehicle battery packs, while enabling them to be reused in new applications through a simple software update, unlocking the future of circular batteries in mobility!

Resonance Spaces is an AI-powered learning platform that helps people navigate controversial topics with empathy, clarity, and constructive dialogue. Think Duolingo, but for conversation skills: users practice active listening, perspective-taking, and argumentation in interactive debate journeys and receive immediate, supportive feedback. Their AI moderation creates psychological safety, structures discussions, and makes progress measurable.

Resonance Spaces are building a scalable solution for education, civic engagement, and workplace training through a B2C freemium product and B2B2C pilots with schools, universities, NGOs, and companies. Their goal is to strengthen dialogue competence as a measurable skill and reduce polarization through prevention and practice. Resonance Spaces is developed by an interdisciplinary team and is currently expanding partnerships to accelerate the next growth phase.