Germany is to pour millions into 10 startup factories across the country as it looks to create thousands more startups by the end of the decade and double down on research commercialisation from its universities.
The factories were announced today as winners of Germany’s Startup Factories competition — which aims to build several startup hubs across the country modelled on Munich’s UnternehmerTUM, the startup lab of the Technical University of Munich (TUM).
TUM’s startup lab is closely integrated with local universities, investors and corporations, and has a connected venture capital fund, UVC Partners. Last year UnternehmerTUM startups attracted €2bn in funding, 17k people participated in its entrepreneurship programmes and 120 startups were started.
The Startup Factories competition was launched by the federal government in February 2024 with the goal of creating five to ten regional startup factories in Germany that have links to universities with a strong spinout culture, are financed at least 50% by private funds and have strong relationships to local corporations and universities. Each factory has an ambitious target to found 1,750 startups annually by 2030. Across all of Germany last year 2,700 startups were founded.
The winners of the competition include the newly created startup factories Unite from Berlin, Zoho Factory from Bavaria, Factory BSA and Bryck Startup Alliance from North Rhine-Westphalia and Boost from Saxony.
Collectively, the 10 selected projects involve 126 universities and research institutions, as well as 114 industry partners which have pledged a total of €110m in private capital to them.
Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) will match that investment with up to €10m per factory over a period of five years.
“We now have a chance to restart into a growth economy. We have great universities, great people in universities, great technology, the industrial base — we are the third largest economy in the world — and we have all these Mittelstand companies,” says Helmut Schönenberger, CEO of UnternehmerTUM and a member of the jury.
“It feels like this is the first time in Germany that we have a joint effort. This is really the chance to have a new Gründerzeit [founding era] in Germany.”
Many of the factories have also started raising pre-seed funds to finance their companies, which Schönenberger says is a “gamechanger.” Zoho Factory, for example, is raising its own investment fund Zoho.VC.
The startup factories are also registered GmbHs (German limited liability companies) and operate independently outside of university decision-making structures.
“The startup factories have to serve startups and so should be entrepreneurial themselves,” says Schönenberger. “They have to know how to acquire customers, how to do business. You have to practice what you preach.”
Schönenberger says that the five runners-up of the competition have also benefitted from going through the process. In the development phase, each company had to draw up a concept of what their startup factory would look like and were tasked with going out into their local ecosystem to establish partnerships and find financing.
“It wasn’t just about writing a paper, it was joining forces with the region, and that has unlocked a lot of potential. On average, the ecosystems have unlocked about €20m for their startup factory on top of the €10m from the government [for the winners],” he adds.
“With the 10 new factories, I think you now have really serious momentum.”
The number of newly-founded startups per annum is on the rise in Germany. According to a report by the German Startups Association, 1,500 new startups were founded nationwide in the first half of 2025 — an increase of 9% compared to the second half of 2024.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/germany-startup-factories/
