Omegga GmbH is a young biotech company that emerged from a so-called Kickstart team of the StartUpLab at HM. With its non-invasive sex determination in chicken eggs, the Omegga team has already made an impression in many places: for instance, the young founders – then still in the pre-foundation phase – won the 2021 Modern Agriculture Innovation Award (category “Research”) and were among the winners in the Kickstart competition at the UAS Future Conference 2022. Afterwards they successfully applied for an EXIST start-up grant from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK) and thus were able to found their company.

At the EIC Accelerator of the European Innovation Council, the young company has now prevailed against over 1000 competitors: Out of 1083 start-ups and small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from 39 countries that applied for the funding, only 42 were successful. Seven of them are from Germany.

Omegga's technology is based on AI-supported spectroscopy: the eggs are screened with light, and the emitted spectrum is measured. These measurements can be used to identify tiny changes in the egg, including gender-specific developments in the embryo. The measurements are repeated over several days and analysed using AI.  

With this method, the sex of chicks can be determined in the egg before the 7th day of development and without destroying the egg. This can prevent the killing of hundreds of thousands male chicks every year in breeding farms for laying hens because they do not lay eggs.

The EIC Accelerator supports start-ups and SMEs that have an innovative, ground-breaking product, service or business model with grants and equity investments through the EIC Fund. In addition, the companies benefit from various business acceleration services that give them access to leading experts, companies, investors, and players in the ecosystem.