Futury as Startup Factory Rhein-Main brings innovation boost to the region

Futury as Startup Factory Rhein-Main brings innovation boost to the region

Frankfurt am Main, October 22, 2024 — Germany as a business location needs more innovative strength and entrepreneurial courage. Startups play a key role here: They develop disruptive technologies and make a significant contribution to ensuring the competitiveness of Germany as a business location. As part of its startup strategy, the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK) has therefore launched the Startup Factories lighthouse competition in order to provide new impetus for the German start-up ecosystem. Futury is part of this competition and has made it to the final round of the concept phase.

High-level discussion at the digital summit: The future of startup factories

“Germany still has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to turning cutting-edge research into market-ready startups,” explains Harald Holzer, managing director of HIGHEST and initiator of RMU, a strategic alliance between the universities of Mainz and Frankfurt and TU Darmstadt. On the second day of this year's digital summit in Frankfurt a.M., together with Dr. Anna Christmann, Federal Government Commissioner for Startups and Prof. Dr. Helmut Schönenberger, Vice President of TU Munich and CEO of Unternehmer TUM GmbH, he will discuss the role of inter-university, regional “startup factories”. These should form the basis for future start-up ecosystems. In the lighthouse competition, 15 projects, including Futury, are being funded in a nine-month concept phase to establish cross-university startup centers. The panel discussion highlights success factors and highlights the role of private financing capital.

Numerous members of the Federal Cabinet are taking part over both days of the event. Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz will also be there to personally find out about the latest digital innovations and strategies.

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Combining research and entrepreneurship

Futury works with Rhine-Main Universities (RMUs) and Frankfurt School of Finance & Management together to set up the Startup Factory Rhein-Main based on the example of entrepreneurship in Munich. This will involve existing transfer centers such as HIGHEST (TU Darmstadt) and Unibator (Goethe University Frankfurt) is integrated into the network. This close cooperation is intended to combine research and entrepreneurship, create a new start-up culture and thus bring ideas from university research to market readiness.

Futury as a startup factory

Futury follows an end-to-end model that supports founders in all phases of the start-up process. From initial idea to successful market launch, Futury offers comprehensive support and combines research with entrepreneurship. A key advantage is the strong ecosystem that Futury has built together with industrial partners. This close cooperation gives founders early access to the market and can work directly on real challenges, which enables them to achieve the best possible product-market fit. The focus is also on promoting students who are to be formed into entrepreneurs. The aim is to produce a so-called “unicorn” — a start-up with a valuation of more than one billion US dollars — from the Rhine-Main region every five years.