The available transcript frames the Golden Pretzel Award 2026 finale as a deliberately high-energy startup pitch competition built around one distinctive value proposition: the startup and its angel investor pitch together on stage, making the investor-founder relationship visible rather than leaving investors as passive evaluators. Host Flo Akinbiyi opens by warming up the room, joking with the audience, firing a cannon into the crowd, and setting expectations that the finalists are “absolutely fantastic.” He explains that the finalists emerged from two pre-rounds, that 11 handpicked teams participated, and that the selected startups are early-stage companies founded in 2023 or later, with less than €1.5 million raised and fewer than 10 employees.

The session then introduces the judging panel and uses the event’s pitch format on the jurors themselves. Anna Fidulov of Kroton Capital says she looks for strong competitive advantage, ideally rooted in unique and proprietary technology, and notes a thesis-aligned exit to NVIDIA. Jan Reichelt of 10x Founders emphasizes uniqueness: a memorable pitch needs a specific element in the founder journey, product reason, or market movement that makes it stand out. Inge from UnternehmerTUM praises the new format, saying the preselection makes judging easier in some ways but also demands better questions. Filip from Cherry Ventures brings the sharpest evaluative lens, saying low energy makes him lose interest quickly and that founders must transmit fire, excitement, and spark.

After using the jury’s criteria to raise audience energy, the finale moves into the first finalist: Molecular Works, introduced through angel investor Laura Ragall of Roy Ventures and founder Nico Eichmann. Laura sets up the problem through cut flowers, arguing that many flowers spoil quickly and that roughly half of cut flowers never reach the end customer, contributing to around €400 billion in supply-chain losses when considering flowers and other perishables. Nico then presents Molecular Works’ solution: fully biological, liquid, temporary RNA-based vaccines for post-harvest perishables, demonstrated through flowers exposed to botrytis fungus where treated flowers showed visible resistance. He says the company focuses on post-harvest application, uses an agentic computational discovery engine, operates a laboratory in Sweden, and developed its rose application in seven months. The provided transcript ends during this first pitch, so later finalists, jury deliberation, and the final award outcome are not present in the supplied material.