Start-up News | December 2024

Minister Habeck Bangs the Drum for Female Start-ups at Lisbon Web Summit 

Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck used his visit to this year’s Web Summit tech conference in Lisbon to throw a spotlight on the achievements of women start-ups in Germany and Europe. Attending Europe’s most important tech event with an all-female start-up delegation (including 12 founders and eight multipliers), Habeck called for an increase in the number of women in the start-up sector, noting the dearth of female founders in Germany and Europe. Female founder access to venture capital must be improved he said, and there should be an increased focus on also increasing the number of women working at university spin-off projects. According to the 12th German Startup Monitor 2024, the share of women in the sector increased during the first two years of the incumbent government’s term but fell from 20.7 percent to 18.8 percent in 2023. Around 150 young companies from Germany were represented at this year’s Web Summit, 100 of which were on hand to demonstrate their work at Germany’s stand at the conference. Germany’s coalition government initiated a start-up strategy with around 100 individual measures to support start-ups in 2022. 

WIN Initiative for German Start-ups 

The German government and partners have launched a new program to revitalize the country’s start-up scene and make the capital market more competitive. The WIN Initiative (“Growth and Innovation Capital for Germany”) has been set up by a number of actors including business, government and the KfW bank to develop measures and instruments to support Germany’s growth and innovation financing ecosystem. A 10-point action plan intended to significantly benefit all parts of the value chain – from investable assets to the legal framework – has been drawn up as part of activities that will have a total impact of around EUR 12 billion for the period up to 2030. As well as funding to improve start-up financing conditions, ten concrete measures have been identified to strengthen the ecosystem, particularly through the networking of universities, investors and companies through a flagship project that takes the Munich-based “UnternehmerTUM” start-up center as its model. To date, more than 80 percent of the coalition government’s start-up measures have been implemented. Among these are an increase in public funding for start-ups in later growth phases, liberalization measures that allow international talent to relocate to Germany and a reduction in bureaucratic obstacles when establishing a new company. 

Startup Association Launches Innovation Agenda 2030  

Germany’s Startup Association recently published its Innovation Agenda 2030 with a raft of proposals to strengthen the domestic start-up sector. Developed with the aid of 100 experts, the 150-page roadmap for innovation and future prosperity calls for significant investment in securing skilled professionals, a threefold increase in venture capital investments (in order to close the annual financing gap of around EUR 30 billion), increased support for the ClimateTech and DeepTech sectors resulting in a doubling of the number of ClimateTech start-ups and 30 DeepTech unicorns by 2030. Further proposed measures include the strengthening diversity in the start-up scene by promoting women, people with a migrant background and working-class children as well as introducing English as a second official language to make administration easier for non-German-speaking specialists. A series of “quick win” proposals for swift implementation include the recognition of foreign qualifications as well as the digitalization of the visa application process. "What our country needs now is a bold entrepreneurial take-off, driven by the excitement for change and the pride in implementing innovative ideas” said Verena Pausder, Chairwoman of the German Startup Association.