By Christian Hackl

Orcan Energy is a renewable energy company founded in 2008 by three researchers—Richard Aumann, Andreas Sichert and Andreas Schuster—as a spin-off from the Technical University of Munich (TUM). Today the company has 65 employees (2013: 35). Despite its international business reach, the company is still based in Munich, where it is firmly rooted by its research co-operation activities.The company emerged from a government-supported programme for university-based business start-ups. A research group was given the task of building a compact and costefficient ORC (Organic Rankine Cycle) system for waste heat recovery from combustion engines.