A letter of recommendation from IHK Mittlerer Niederrhein

On 27 March 2026 we presented CABITREE to the jury of IHK Mittlerer Niederrhein, the regional chamber of commerce. The occasion was concrete: anyone who wants to apply for the Gründungsstipendium.NRW, the NRW founders' grant, needs a letter of recommendation from an accredited founders' network — and for that, the idea has to convince an expert jury.

We told them where CABITREE comes from: from a joinery workshop, from the daily experience that declarations of origin and material claims in the wood sector are rarely backed by evidence. And where it is headed: towards a platform that documents land, trees and processing in a way that external auditors can actually retrace.

The jury issued the recommendation. That cleared the way to submit the grant application — which went out the very next day.

For us, the meeting was more than a formality. It was the first time a panel from business and start-up advisory systematically questioned the idea: business model, market, feasibility. That it ended with a recommendation confirmed our direction — and left us with a set of good questions we have been working on ever since.

A few weeks later, a letter arrived with the outcome of the application. More on that elsewhere.