1. Germany’s start-up scene is in a state of flux: a new generation of business founders is emerging who have many things in common – they pursue research and development as a matter of course, use digital technologies and launch businesses that they want to see expand in the future. These young start-ups develop technologies for medical product innovations, new forms of mobility or applied artificial intelligence.
2. One such young and innovative company is the multi-award-winning start-up ArtiMinds Robotics. ArtiMinds has developed software that allows industrial robots to be programmed quickly and intuitively: the robot copies human movements and learns how to react flexibly to problems. It can then reliably solve even complex tasks.
3. An idea that is as brilliant as it is convincing, this has been a real success story. A 2013 spin-off from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) has evolved into a technology company employing over 60 people and supplying the world market from its Karlsruhe base.
SCIENTIFIC SPIN-OFFS
1. Many spin-offs arise out of projects in universities or research institutes. This was also the case at ArtiMinds Robotics: all three of the young founders of ArtiMinds were research associates at KIT. Known as the “research university in the Helmholtz Association”, it is ideally positioned to help high-tech spin-offs get off the ground.
2. In 2017 alone, this institution of top research and scientific excellence registered 124 inventions and 55 patents, and enabled 29 spin-offs. Like KIT, other non-university research institutions such as Fraunhofer and the Max Planck Society, not to mention universities and higher education institutions, are also involved in the transfer of scientific projects to business product development.
BUSINESS SPIN-OFFS
1. Existing companies also generate spin-offs from innovative projects or create internal startups. The technology giant Bosch, for instance, funds young businesses all over the world with a start-up platform and invests millions in internal and external start-ups.
2. Or Daimler, which specifically targets innovative start-ups: together with the University of Stuttgart and other partners, the company explores opportunities for cooperating with hard-tech start-ups through its “Startup Autobahn” programme.
FUNDING FOR START-UPS
1. Of course, not all start-ups receive initial help from universities or companies. All the same, they can expect some support: besides the numerous awards and start-up prizes, substantial financial support is also available from public-sector funds, as is long-term coaching.
2. There is indeed very good public support for start-ups. As experts attest, “in an international comparison, there is no country with a significantly higher performance than Germany”. This is the conclusion drawn in the annual Start-up Monitor published by the KfW Group.
3. For example, High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), Germany’s biggest investor when it comes to early-phase financing of innovative and technology-oriented companies, provides support right from the start. Funding comes mainly from the Federal Government, followed by KfW Group. Private investors from small, medium-sized and large companies also contribute to the fund. The HTGF helps not only by providing early-stage funding but also actively supports you in getting your new business off the ground.
4. If you are launching a scientific spin-off, the publicly-funded EXIST programme may be of interest. The programme, which also helped ArtiMinds to get started, supports researchers and students in preparing and implementing their research-based start-ups, accompanying them from the business plan stage right up to the actual launch. This is done by providing grants or paying for personnel and equipment, by funding development work and covering start-up costs, and by offering coaching and seminars.
VENTURE CAPITAL
1. Generally speaking, the environment for start-ups and spin-offs has improved in recent years, and there has also been progress when it comes to investment: besides the considerable public-sector financing that is available, private investors are increasingly providing venture capital.
2. That is a good thing, because, according to Deutsche Startup Monitor, over half of all start-ups are dependent on external capital. A total of 1.5 billion euros was raised by these roughly 1,500 young, innovative and growth-oriented enterprises in 2018.
3. This venture capital especially benefited not only providers of financial services, but also enterprises working in the mobility, blockchain and AI sectors.
COOPERATION MODELS
1. Although companies carry out the largest share of research and development work in Germany, universities and publicly funded research organisations are also strongly involved in research. They are responsible for just under one third of the spending that Germany invests in research and development every year.
2. Universities and research organisations are especially strongly involved in basic research, have good international links and are also among the world’s most active applicants for patents when it comes to applied research.
3. What would make more sense than pooling these strengths? Supporting regional partnerships between industry and research is part of the programme of the Federal Government. This policy is intended to strengthen the reciprocal transfer of ideas, knowledge and technology between companies, universities, non-university research institutions and other societal actors.
4. Which form this takes can vary quite considerably since industry and research cooperate in many areas. For example, there are numerous joint programmes and research projects involving companies as well as higher education institutions and research organisations.
5. Many different forms of cooperation are possible here:
- Contract research for industry carried out by universities and non-university research institutions
- Joint staffing and funding of research projects
- Industry-funded research groups
- Donations and sponsorship for specific R&D institutes
- Establishment of endowed professorships by companies
- Jointly funded research structures or institutes
- New collaborative models in networks, clusters or public-private partnerships/research campuses
EXAMPLE
1. These various forms of cooperation are being supported by a broad and specially tailored range of public funding models – for example, the funding initiative Research Campus – Public-Private Partnership for Innovation.
2. This programme benefits projects like Digital Photonic Production (DPP). RWTH Aachen University, two Fraunhofer institutes and over 20 industrial companies have pooled their resources in this “research campus”. Their goal: to research and develop light as a tool for the industrial production of the future. The interdisciplinary research team aims to find a way of both increasing the customisation of production and reducing manufacturing costs using digital photonic production.
3. Researchers from academia and industry work together here on a large number of research topics under one umbrella, the Industry Building DPP. For example, they are investigating the properties of powder materials and working on new kinds of measuring systems with high-precision sensors for the quality control of optical components.
4. For its innovative joint research, the campus is receiving public funding of up to 2 million euros a year over a period of 15 years.
KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER
1. The Research Campus programme is by no means the only funding initiative that supports cooperation and knowledge transfer. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research has established a broad range of funding programmes aimed at strengthening the links between academia, research, industry and society.
2. They include Clusterplattform Deutschland, a platform that aims to keep actors in and outside Germany informed of the latest programmes and calls for proposals of the Federal Government, the German states and the European Union.
3. Another initiative is the go-cluster programme, which offers needs-oriented services for actors not only in clusters themselves, but also in politics, science and industry. It also provides support in the realisation of projects involved in developing new cluster services and cluster concepts.
4. The German Research Foundation (DFG) also supports knowledge transfer between research and industry. In recent years, the DFG has financed over 400 transfer projects.
5. The DFG hopes this will have a twofold effect: on the one hand, knowledge transfer is expected to contribute to increased innovation in industry and society, while at the same time collaborative projects between research and non-research partners can also give rise to new research questions and in turn deliver ideas for basic research.
Source:
https://www.research-in-germany.org/en/research-landscape/industrial-research/spin-offs-and-start-ups.html
https://www.research-in-germany.org/en/research-landscape/industrial-research/cooperation-models.html
