Additional to more traditional research streams like new clinker substitutes and their composition, alternative fuels and refinements in process technology, recent years have seen the announcement of a number of radical innovations as alternatives for OPC.Although no market entrance occurred up until today, they have an impact on the innovation system and the research community.These approaches raised interest among researchers and even the cement industry, which was partly involved in financing start-up companies like Calera, Novacem or Celitement.In this presentation these three start-ups are investigated regarding the organization of the innovation process and their broader implications for the cement technology innovation system.Although these approaches hitherto did not provide evidence as alternatives to OPC, their emergence alone has meaningful implications for the research community.