The aim of Social Impact Republic is to inspire prospective entrepreneurs about issues of public benefit and expand existing offerings for impact startups. It will also drive forward the development of technological innovations with societal impact. This is also intended to improve the framework conditions for emerging impact unicorns. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is funding the initiative of UnternehmerTUM.
Social Impact Republic brings together the offerings of founding members Phineo from Berlin, Founders Foundation from Bielefeld, AppliedAI Institute for Europe in Heilbronn, UnternehmerTUM from Munich, and DIZ Rostock. Impact founders thus gain access to startup funding for high-tech startups. The program is organized into three so-called tracks for this purpose:
- Create Track: Prospective entrepreneurs are supported from their impact idea through building a prototype to financing and building a founding team.
- Accelerate Track: Existing impact startups are supported in scaling their existing product or service. The goal is to unfold the positive impact of their solution and address the defined social problem.
- Transform Track: High-tech startups that have so far been barely active in the impact sector are supported in leveraging their technological innovation to solve social challenges.
Mario Brandenburg, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Minister for Education and Research, explains:
“By establishing the Social Impact Republic, we are accelerating the development of the ecosystem for social innovations in Germany and helping to trigger a new wave of startups. With our funding, we want to establish a national network to support founding teams in driving innovations with impact. Because innovations are the key to addressing the great challenges of our time.”
All German startup centers are invited to participate in the Social Impact Republic.
