Munich Startup: What was your career path after your training?
Lisa Oberaigner, Co-Founder & CEO of Emidat: I’ve been active in the climate tech scene since 2018. Back then, I co-founded the “Sustainable Entrepreneurship Initiative” at TUM and led the “Climate Club” at the CDTM (Center for Digital Technology and Management). Immediately after graduating, I started looking for co-founders and developed my first ideas from MIT in Boston. I eventually went back to Munich, partly because of the CDTM. We had originally planned to found the company in Berlin.
Crazy topics
Munich Startup: What motivated you to found the company?
Lisa Oberaigner: In my second semester at TUM, I had the opportunity to attend guest lectures by founders who I found to be extremely inspiring personalities. I liked the energy of the people, no matter how crazy the topics they were working on.
Munich Startup: What do you wish you had known before you founded your first company?
Lisa Oberaigner: I think I was already well prepared thanks to my experience at CDTM and a few internships in the startup and venture capital sector. Nevertheless, you’re never really “ready” anyway. Because a lot of things you just have to learn on the job.
Munich Startup: How has your company been financed so far?
Lisa Oberaigner : Emidat currently has angel and VC investment, and of course revenues. We were bootstrapped for the first five months.
Munich Startup: When and where do you get the best ideas?
Lisa Oberaigner: When I listen to inspiring people giving talks or listening to podcasts. Reading a book also stimulates my thoughts.
Munich Startup: What are your 3 favorite work tools?
Lisa Oberaigner: Firstly, Notion, it can do everything. Secondly, noise-canceling headphones to ignore the hustle and bustle from time to time. Thirdly, Hubspot, I still sell 80 percent of my time, the tool is simply incredibly powerful.
Lisa Oberaigner: “What sticks is the feeling”
Munich Startup: Your top tip for pitching?
Lisa Oberaigner: What sticks is the feeling. If you seem nervous, people will get nervous. I recommend this: Just have fun and take the pressure off. My co-founder Flo always said at the beginning: If it’s really bad, at least they’ll remember.
Munich Startup : Do you think it’s a good time to start a company right now? Why is that?
Lisa Oberaigner : It’s always both a good and a bad time to start a company. If you want to start a company at some point, like I did, now is the best time.
Munich Startup: Which technology or industry would you focus on for your next startup?
Lisa Oberaigner : Most likely something related to climate change, then probably hardware.
Munich Startup : What do you think could be improved about Munich as a startup location?
Lisa Oberaigner : First of all, you can feel the internal movement, which is clearly encouraged by the strong impetus from institutions such as TUM and the CDTM. What is still missing is international attention so that more capital flows into our region and we can think even bigger. It would also be important for the established players in the region to think a little bigger.
What would the world look like if there were more successful female founders?
Munich Startup: Which founder would you like to meet in person? And what would you ask him or her?
Lisa Oberaigner: Melanie Perkins from Canva. As far as I know, it’s the most valuable female-founded startup in the world. Canva was also profitable very early on, but continued to raise VC money because Perkins wanted to build the biggest company in the world from the start. I would ask her why she thinks there are so few highly successful female founders. And what she thinks the world would look like if there were more of them.
