Startup Factory Hamburg Ready to Race

7 June 2024, by Newsroom editorial office

Photo: Universität Hamburg / von Wieding

Hamburg is entering the next round in the national competition Leuchtturmwettbewerb Startup Factory. With strong partners, Hamburg is now on the path to establishing a start-up factory of international brilliance. Entrepreneurs should enjoy support here in all phases of founding and developing their business in Hamburg.

Universität Hamburg, the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), and DESY have qualified for the final round of the national competition organized by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action. The consortium is now taking a big step towards the Startup Factory Hamburg.

“Startup factories” aim to facilitate knowledge exchange from research to the business sector, especially through start-ups, faster and more successfully. To better tap into potential and foster commercial use, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action is calling for applicants to their Startup Factories competition. Throughout Germany, 5 to 10 start-up factories should be developed as autonomous and commercially run entities in close cooperation with scientists. The Ministry is funding the development of infrastructure with up to €10 million over 5 years on condition of a matching private investment of at least the same amount. 

The Startup Factory Hamburg is pursuing the following goals:

• significantly increasing the number of new research-based start-ups in Hamburg
• developing the most successful European center for start-ups and “scale-ups” in specific fields (new materials, AI, and data science)
• leading Hamburg into the top 10 of the most successful start-up ecosystems in Europe

Startup Factories should take a market-oriented approach to realizing and scaling support measures for innovative, growth-oriented start-ups, especially on the basis of research. The exchange of knowledge and research findings should lead to a significantly larger number of technology-based new businesses. The goal is to expand upon already-extant support within higher education and research institutions. Not only should more businesses be founded, but start-ups should undergo growth and internationalization more successfully. Highly technological start-ups are subject to numerous risks after they are founded, they generally have greater need for capital than other start-ups do, and they need to adjust their business models to changing social and economic conditions. Because universities and research institutions can provide new business with only minimal long-term support, there is generally a lack of professionally organized, market-oriented support for these kinds of start-ups. Thus, a major, long-term element of the start-up strategy of the Federal German Government is its Startup Factories competition.

The competition in Hamburg is the logical development of the successful PIER PLUS and Startup Port activities. The goal is to make Hamburg attractive for innovation and entrepreneurial activity. To do so, research institutions and businesses are working together in many different ways and they will intensify this cooperation in the next phase. The first result is the strong involvement of the Michael Otto Foundation and the Joachim Herz Stiftung, which have been supporting the application process throughout and which want to help financially support Hamburg’s Startup Factory. Hamburg is already on its way to the concept phase, piloting individual ideas, with the help of the Michael Otto Foundation. This is another strong sign of the unique conditions in Hamburg.

“Together with the Michael Otto Foundation, the Joachim Herz Stiftung, and the ministries for economics and science, as well as our scientific partners at PIER PLUS, we at Universität Hamburg are building a strong alliance for the city with the Startup Factories. With the positive notification, we as a consortium can now develop a concept to foster innovative and interdisciplinary start-ups based in research. Together and beyond institutional boundaries, we want to take our ideas from Hamburg into the world. To do so, we will carry our weight and, true to the northern German saying ‘Butter bei der Fische,’ we will put our money where our mouths are. The application for Hamburg is the logical development of our successful PIER PLUS activities,” says Prof. Dr. Jetta Frost, Universität Hamburg’s vice president for knowledge exchange, academic careers, and equal opportunity.