GREEN TRANSPORTATION

DTU eased Martina's dive into entrepreneurship

DTU graduate Martina Vojtkova has two master’s degrees under her belt, but in her current job she utilizes an entirely different skillset.

From lab work to computer-based biology to founding a startup that stores green energy from electric cars and uses it as an alternative energy source in the home, DTU graduate and entrepreneur Martina Vojtkova isn’t afraid of changing paths or seizing opportunities. Photo: DTU

Tuesday 04 June 2024

Nasrin Billie

In the shared office space on the first floor of DTU’s innovation hub, DTU Skylab, founder of Gridlinx Martina Vojtkova is drawing up three employment contracts. The young company is on a roll, seeing that its solution which promises to enable car owners to connect their electric vehicle (EV) to a box, which not only charges the car, but also powers their private homes with green, cheap energy, is fully developed.

“By the end of 2024, we hope to have a finished, physical product that can be used in houses and also be shown to potential investors. So, it's like a buffer year,” Martina Vojtkova discloses about the first critical year in a startup’s life.

With an investment of over 1 million DKK in soft funding from the Innovation Fund Denmark, three of Gridlinx’s six founders are secured financially to focus on the development of the company full-time.

It also helps to be part of DTU’s well-developed ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship, where startups like Gridlinx get desk space, coaching and can work 24/7 alongside other ambitious teams.

Can save electric car owners several thousand kroner

What is also gaining momentum is the number of electric cars in Denmark. Today there are a quarter of a million electric cars on the roads, but in five years this number is expected to quadruple.

Electric vehicles typically have a consumption of 4,000 kWh per year. With Gridlinx's solution, car owners can achieve a cost reduction of up to 33 percent of their energy bill by a) charging the electrical vehicle during off-peak hours, b) storing the electricity in the battery pack and c) using just 5 to 10 percent of that power to supply their homes instead of power from the grid when it is expensive, usually between 17 and 21.

Martina Vojtkova (no. 2 from left) already had a Master's in biotechnology with her from Slovakia when she came to Denmark to study bioinformatics at DTU. Photo: DTU

Easier second time around

With Gridlinx, Martina Vojtkova is off to a flying start. That wasn’t the case with the first startup she founded in Slovakia, while taking her first master’s degree in Biotech at Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava.

“In Slovakia, there is no funding or support for startups or entrepreneurs. You must finance your business from your own pockets, and when you eventually run out of funds, you are stuck at one place,” she says about her first business, which deals with nutritional supplements.

Two and a half years later in Denmark, Martina Vojtkova experienced a much more supportive approach to innovation and entrepreneurship at DTU.

“Thanks to DTU’s innovation programmes and advanced prototyping facilities we have received valuable feedback and validation. It is all people who know business, telling us that Gridlinx has real potential,” recounts Martina Vojtkova, who recently finished her second master’s degree, in bioinformatics, at DTU.

Gridlinx started as a student project on the innovation course X-tech Entrepreneurship at DTU and has today developed into a company that employs three full-time employees. Photo: DTU

Detour to success

Back in Slovakia, as a student in biotech, Martina Vojtkova would experiment with genetics in a lab for extended periods of time, until she came to understand that research and journal publishing wasn’t the right fit for her. She switched to the more practical field of bioinformatics, where she could work on more hands-on cases using biological computer tools, but still something was missing:

“I kind of sidetracked bioinformatics and went for the business courses that DTU offers,” she says.

The 13-week-long entrepreneurship course X-tech is what started Gridlinx. That’s where the idea advanced from a student project to an actual company with a CVR number. Today, the company has six founders and has partnered with Elstyrken, an electrical installation company.

“I am the CEO of the company, so I mostly do the business side of talking to investors, pitching, making plans and overseeing the operations. I don’t do much related to my two master’s degrees, which is very weird,” she admits. To which she adds:

“I mean, I saw that we have this great team and this great idea, and that my team members wanted to move this forward. So, I feel like I have finally found my right fit.”

Gridlinx is very close to having a functional prototype, which they hope to start testing at DTU’s electrical lab come summer.

Facts

  • Gridlinx is a DTU-startup that seeks to transform electrical vehicles (EV’s) into home battery systems, that can transfer energy from the battery pack to your home. Follow Gridlinx's work her 

  • In 2023, 81 startups were established by employees and students at DTU. Since 2000, staff and students at DTU have founded 923 start-ups of which 64 percent are still operating. In 2023, the three largest companies provided jobs for 1000 people.

  • DTU X-Tech Entrepreneurship is an accelerated-learning programme that combines engineering, business and marketing students with inventions, patents and technological needs from industry partners and DTU research. The outcome: A prototype, a business plan, and an entrepreneurial team ready to explore a new business venture.
Gridlinx is a startup that is developing a solution that stores green energy from electric cars and uses the electricity as an alternative energy source in the home. Photo: DTU
The Gridlinx team consists of (from left) mathematical modeling engineer Markus Olsen, AI and data engineer Mikkel Olsen, bioinformatics engineer Martina Vojtkova - all DTU graduates and one student. RUC international studies student Sebastian Soroska (far right) is also part of the team. Fifth member of Gridlinx, electrical engineer Kenan Henriksen, was absent when the photo was taken. Photo: DTU
DTU’s innovation hub, DTU Skylab, helps students and researchers to accelerate the development of innovative entrepreneurial ideas from the early stages to a stage where the company becomes financially sustainable. A total of 359 startups have received coaching through DTU Skylab. Photo: DTU
At DTU Skylab, startups get, among other things, access to financing and can use advanced facilities for product development, such as Electro Lab. Photo: DTU

Topic

Green transportation

The transportation sector is emitting more and more CO2 from cars, trucks, planes and shipping. To reverse this trend, more of the known solutions and technologies need to come into play.

DTU is a leader in research and education in key technologies such as green electricity, green fuels, electrification of society and battery technology development.

Read more on the green transportation topic page.