PsyCurio wins the Places _ Startup Pitch

The Health-VR-Startup PsyCurio is the first winner of the Places _ Startup Pitch. PsyCurio is a virtual reality software for the treatment of mental illness. Here VR is combined with psychological and neuroscientific findings.

PsyCurio prevailed against the AR art app Artivive, the virtual reality game developers of Curvature Games and the VR round-flight startup Skytrip.  The concept and the innovative approach of PsyCurio convinced the jury, which consists of venture capitalists, business developers and experts from the start-up industry.

In their statement, the jury praised the enormous market potential and the “creative, helpful and meaningful approach” of the project. This also reflects the main theme of the Places _ Festival – Meaningful VR. The prize money of 3000€ was sponsored by Gelsen-Net and handed over by NRW Minister of Economic and Digital Affairs Prof. Dr. Andreas Pinkwart together with GELSEN-NET Managing Director Thomas Dettenberg.

The Lord Mayor of Gelsenkirchen, Frank Baranowski, highlighted the potential of the Creative Quarter in Gelsenkirchen-Ückendorf for young start-ups. Prof. Dr. Andreas Pinkwart, Minister of Economic Affairs, Innovation, Digitalisation and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, also explained that Gelsenkirchen, as a digital model city, makes an important contribution to the city of the future. He went on to say: “When we searched for the digital model regions in NRW together with the state government, it quickly became clear to me that Gelsenkirchen is an important player for digitization. This is also due to the topic of virtual reality, which is anchored here with the Places _ Festival. All this is driving structural change, as are other start-ups that are settling here.

You can watch the whole show here again.