A trip to Stanford University more than two decades ago inspired the then-aerospace engineering student Helmut Sch\u00f6nenberger that Germany needed to emulate the Californian school\u2019s hub for innovation.<\/p>\n
In 2002, after dedicating his doctoral thesis to that subject, Sch\u00f6nenberger set up the Technical University of Munich\u2019s entrepreneurship centre UnternehmerTUM alongside BMW heiress Susanne Klatten.<\/p>\n
In the years since, UnternehmerTUM \u2014 named after the German word for entrepreneurship \u2014 has emerged as a leading centre for start-ups in Germany and tops the FT ranking of Europe\u2019s leading start-up hubs for the third year running. It has several high-profile companies among its alumni, such as satellite launcher Isar Aerospace, software group Celonis and the travel-tech company Flix.<\/p>\n
The hub today is \u201cabout 100-times\u201d what Sch\u00f6nenberger, who serves as chief executive, originally envisioned it to be. \u201cIt\u2019s this self-reinforcing flying wheel,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The German government has since backed another 10 start-up factories in cities such as Frankfurt and Hamburg, modelled after the Munich-based hub\u2019s success, he adds. <\/p>\n With multiple locations, and more than 500 employees working with over 15,000 participants a year, UnternehmerTUM offers support for entrepreneurs from training to networking. It has accelerator programmes, spaces for prototyping products, and can even provide financing from its own venture capital firm with assets topping \u20ac700mn. <\/p>\n \u201cThe teams that go through it have the advantage of combining research excellence with company building knowhow, which is missing from most other German universities,\u201d says Filip Dames, founding partner of venture capital group Cherry Ventures and a board member of the German Start-ups Association. <\/p>\n Start-ups with ties to UnternehmerTUM are now raising a total of about \u20ac2bn per year, Sch\u00f6nenberger says. In total the centre has supported more than 1,000 businesses.<\/p>\n For Flix, founded in 2011 by three friends as a platform offering bus and train services, the hub played a key role early in the company\u2019s history. It \u201cidentified us quickly and funded us\u201d, says co-founder Daniel Krauss.<\/p>\n Alongside early investment from the centre\u2019s venture capital fund, UnternehmerTUM also put Flix\u2019s founders in touch with industry members outside the tech ecosystem, some of whom were early members of the start-up\u2019s advisory board.<\/p>\n \u201cThey quickly connected us with old money, old industry people [who] have been successful, Krauss says. \u201cIf you want something, reach out \u2014 they come back in minutes and [will] always be of help.\u201d<\/p>\n Flix, which has since risen to a multi-billion-euro valuation and bought the US bus company Greyhound Lines in 2021, is now giving back. Its founders participate in events at UnternehmerTUM and invest personally in the centre\u2019s latest venture capital funds.<\/p>\n It perfectly combines all of the ingredients that are required to build great companies<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/images.ft.com\/v3\/image\/raw\/https%3A%2F%2Fd1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net%2Fproduction%2Fd529a562-5ad9-4ee6-8432-08bd0c26cd30.jpg?source=next-article&fit=scale-down&quality=highest&width=700&dpr=1\")
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