UnternehmerTUM tops ranking of Europe’s leading startup hubs

Ask the founders at any fledgling Munich firm how they obtained their enterprise off the bottom, and they’re prone to point out UnternehmerTUM, the startup lab of the Technical College of Munich (TUM), that was arrange in 2002 by German heiress Susanne Klatten. 

The non-profit organisation presents 20 programmes that help startups within the necessities of making an organization: from constructing a prototype, to pitching to enterprise capital teams, and studying how you can be a chief government.

Every year, 5,000 folks participate in startup programmes at UnternehmerTUM, and 50 new companies are created.

One of many lab’s key strengths, word founders and VCs, is its sprawling community comprising industrial teams, corresponding to Airbus and BMW, small and medium-sized enterprises, regional and worldwide universities, VCs, and the Bavarian State Ministry of Digital Affairs.

Every associate offers one thing totally different to assist younger corporations develop — corresponding to capital, connections, or changing into prospects of the startups. And, on account of these strengths, UnternehmerTUM tops the FT-Statista rating of Europe’s main startup hubs in 2024.

“Our USP is that every little thing is extremely built-in,” says UnternehmerTUM’s co-founder and CEO Helmut Schönenberger, including that most of the start-up lab’s 400 staff are former college students of TUM.

He explains that, whereas 40 per cent of the lab’s financing comes from personal buyers and German state financing, 60 per cent is from corporates that play an energetic function within the organisation. They rent expertise from the college and collaborate with startups from UnternehmerTUM to deliver revolutionary tech options to market.

One such initiative, dubbed Round Republic, was launched in partnership with BMW to deliver collectively corporates, startups and lecturers with the intention of making options for the round economic system: from battery recycling to electrical mobility. “That is how you actually staff up and get sufficient energy [to tackle] essential subjects,” says Schönenberger.

Lots of the lab’s company companions are additionally restricted companions in UVC Companions, a VC began by UnternehmerTUM in 2011 that’s now unbiased. It has develop into one among Germany’s most high-profile tech buyers, with €400mn in belongings below administration. Every year, UVC will get round 3,000 functions for funding from startups, globally, although it solely makes 10 investments yearly. Its portfolio consists of German AI startup Aleph Alpha and mobility group Flixbus, an UnternehmerTUM alumnus. 

Shut cooperation with the college additionally ensures that entrepreneurship is seen as a viable profession choice for college students early on — a facet that Fabian Gruner, senior principal at German VC group HV Capital, says makes the hub so “profitable” at rolling out prime quality startups.

College students at Munich’s technical college are ready to participate in programmes at UnternehmerTUM as a part of their levels, the place they can obtain the identical quantity of credit as for an educational course. This additionally helps guarantee educational analysis is transferred to society within the type of commercially viable services and products.

“UnternehmerTUM provides this ‘I can do it’ angle, which raises the extent of ambition amongst entrepreneurs,” observes Benjamin Erhart, basic associate at UVC Companions. “It’s not simply instructing [entrepreneurial] strategies, however mindsets.”

Certainly, Schönenberger says that the intention of its programmes is to permit entrepreneurs to check out concepts, even when they ultimately fail. The lab’s three-month incubation programme for very early-stage startups, is the most well-liked.

Startup fundraising was troublesome final 12 months: in Germany, VC funding dropped from $12bn in 2022 to $8.3bn in 2023, based on Dealroom knowledge. However UnternehmerTUM hit a brand new file: its startups raised $2bn throughout 100 financing rounds, numbers unmatched by different German universities. 

Schönenberger says that UnternehmerTUM’s mannequin is extra “secure” than different labs as a result of it has a tried and examined formulation of manufacturing startups, which it has refined over a 22-year interval. 

“[UnternehmerTUM] is sort of a manufacturing facility with a manufacturing line of corporations . . . It has such a momentum,” he says. “Final 12 months was a foul 12 months for the VC ecosystem and was a extremely powerful 12 months for our startups. But it surely makes an enormous distinction when you will have . . . relationships with VCs and different companions, not solely in Germany however in Europe and particularly the US.”

Making an operation of this dimension run effectively, nevertheless, is a “actually powerful administration job” says Schönenberger, particularly because the startup manufacturing facility is rising 20-25 per cent per 12 months when it comes to the variety of staff, college students and startups it helps.

However a profitable startup lab can not relaxation on its laurels; it should adapt swiftly to maintain tempo with exterior challenges, corresponding to technological change.

“Each month, a brand new expertise comes alongside and we’ve to assume: how will we incorporate this?” says Schönenberger. “Can we arrange a brand new course on the college? How will we construct up infrastructure for this expertise? How can we discover companions for that? How can we fundraise and win new associate corporations and buyers? It’s fixed.”

UnternehmerTUM now has plans to copy its mannequin in different areas. The organisation is partnering with Germany’s Federal Ministry for Financial Affairs and Local weather Motion to construct 10 startup factories within the neighborhood of universities in an try to supply extra profitable startups, and switch Germany into a number one startup nation.

“It comes again to what Susanne [Klatten] was saying 20 years in the past,” says Schönenberger. “If you wish to preach entrepreneurship, it’s a must to be entrepreneurial your self.”