Spin-off Fusion Bionic Wins Fraunhofer Founder Award 2024
News / 21 February 2025
(Munich/Dresden, 02/20/2025) On February 19, 2025, the Fraunhofer Founder Award, endowed with 50,000 euros, was presented to Fusion Bionic GmbH. The Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS’s spin-off impressed with its bio-inspired laser technology, creating a new standard in ultrafast surface processing for a wide range of industrial applications.
Surface technology is a driver of future innovation and crucial to the sustainability of products and processes, the reduction of adverse environmental impacts, and the promotion of resource efficiency. The high-tech start-up Fusion Bionic applies bio-inspired principles, such as the lotus effect, to technical surfaces using an ultra-fast laser process. The resulting bionic effects are based on extremely fine micro- and nanotextures that significantly improve the performance of surfaces and open up a wide range of innovative approaches in industries such as semiconductor technology, photovoltaics, and glass.
Disruption through Efficiency and Precision
Fusion Bionic’s laser technology integrates seamlessly into existing manufacturing processes and brings nature-inspired structural designs directly onto surfaces. Surface engineering can make a decisive difference in user performance: Photovoltaic modules, for example, gain self-cleaning properties, heat exchangers become more energy-efficient, and PFAS-free textiles become water-repellent. Fusion Bionic’s innovative laser technology can increasingly replace costly or environmentally problematic processes such as chemical etching, sandblasting, or plasma. As a result, companies can significantly increase their energy efficiency, reduce CO2 emissions, and avoid environmentally harmful emissions.
Leading-edge Research as Asset in the Global Market
Fusion Bionic’s solutions are based on direct laser interference patterning (DLIP), a high-speed laser technology up to 100 times faster than established methods. Fusion Bionic offers services spanning application development, technology training, contract manufacturing, and hardware solutions based on DLIP technology. In April 2021, Fusion Bionic GmbH was spun off from Fraunhofer IWS with a team of researchers led by Dr. Tim Kunze and experts from the industry. It was supported by Fraunhofer Venture and Fraunhofer AHEAD in all phases of the founding process. In 2022, Fusion Bionic was awarded the Ray of Hope Prize by the US Biomimicry Institute as one of the best nature-inspired start-ups worldwide. In the same year, it received further recognition in the form of the Saxon Start-up Award and 2nd place in the Innovation Award Laser Technology, jointly organized by AKL Arbeitskreis Lasertechnik e. V. and European Laser Institute ELI e. V.