Every year, fungal diseases of grapevines cause a loss of one billion euros. Conventional plant protection agents are largely powerless in combating them. A planned spin-off of the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPI-P) is now to further develop research into sustainable, microtechnology-based plant protection products and bring them to market maturity. The path to the spin-off is supported by an EXIST start-up grant from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.