Start-up competition
GSS Audio wins the ‘TechBase Tiger’ award with plenty of bass and powerful sound
The lecture theatre is full. On a screen, lightsabres whizz through the air and spaceships dart through space, but suddenly the bass cuts out. The impressive sound experience of *Star Wars* is gone; all that remains is a faint rumble. It was with this scenario that Jacqueline Hey, a member of the founding team at GSS Audio, opened her pitch at this year’s ‘Tiger der TechBase’ at OTH Regensburg, immediately capturing the audience’s attention.
“Building the Future of Sound”
The GSS Audio founding team has developed a new generation of bass speakers. What makes them special is that, whilst delivering comparable performance, they take up significantly less space than conventional systems. That may not sound particularly spectacular at first, but it is extremely exciting for the automotive sector, for example, as it enables exceptionally good audio solutions to be achieved in the smallest of spaces.
During her pitch at the ‘Tiger der Techbase 2026’ event at the end of July 2026, founder Jacqueline Hey demonstrated convincingly and impressively just how much power, bass and listening experience her product delivers. But it was also the combination of technical innovation, a clear description of the problem and a confident presentation that won over the jury and the audience: As a result, the founding team led by Jacqueline Hey and Christian Seebauer secured victory for their start-up, GSS Audio, and took home the coveted Tiger trophy.
Exciting projects: from neurotherapy to drone defence
The ‘TechBase Tiger’ is aimed specifically at young founding teams and start-ups in their early stages. The pitches and projects presented were correspondingly diverse. For example, the team from Nox Neuro presented a concept for therapeutic boxing training that combines physical exercise with cognitive tasks and is designed to support neurological therapies. Another start-up team that had entered the competition for the coveted ‘Tiger’ award was Deadalus Defence: they presented an autonomous drone that independently detects unidentified flying objects and safely intercepts them with a net.
The variety of business start-up ideas is impressive
No less impressive were three further projects centred on topics such as artificial intelligence, automation and digitalisation. For instance, the Fieldfix start-up team presented a project that uses artificial intelligence to assist service technicians with fault analysis. MyWeddingPlace is a digital platform that brings together all aspects of wedding planning in one place. And the start-up Prinity is developing a solution that enables 3D printing jobs to be processed automatically, one after the other, using a special printing plate.
To make starting a business in the region even more successful
It is the joint initiative by OTH Regensburg, TechBase Regensburg and the Upper Palatinate Digital Start-up Centre (DGO) that demonstrates just how important a strong regional start-up ecosystem is. The conditions for start-up founders are excellent. TechBase and the Start-up Centre, as well as funding programmes, short decision-making processes and a strong network, contribute significantly to this.
The ‘Tiger der TechBase’ award is sponsored by the Bavarian State Ministry of Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy, Gründerland Bayern, the GründungsHUB Ostbayern and the High-Tech Agenda Bayern. The prize is awarded annually, with the winning team selected by a jury comprising several members.