The Materials Lab Incubator (MerLIn) is an independent sister project of the Bio4MatPro Competence Center at RWTH Aachen University and is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE), the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMFTR), and the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Action and Energy of North Rhine-Westphalia (MWIKE).

MerLIn aims to establish itself as Europe’s leading deep-tech incubator for materials science. The incubator supports founding teams in developing science-based, innovative products with high value creation potential in the field of advanced materials derived from renewable, ideally regionally available raw materials.

As a VC-oriented program, MerLIn offers early-stage access to investors, non-dilutive funding of up to €200,000, fully equipped S1 laboratories, and a tailored coaching and mentoring program. MerLIn is open to both regional projects and external inventors.