Munich Startup: Where do you see CDTM within the Munich ecosystem – are you bridge-builders, talent forge, or rather innovation drivers?
Samuel Valenzuela, CDTM: Our mission at CDTM is to connect students from different disciplines, train them, and empower them as innovators. Thus, the CDTM is both a bridge-builder between students, a talent forge where students can experiment, and with over 260 startups founded and over 7,000 jobs created in Europe, an innovation driver from Munich.
Munich Startup: What makes CDTM indispensable for the Munich scene, and why would a crucial component be missing without you?
Samuel Valenzuela: CDTM promotes both academic and entrepreneurial exchange between young talents and industry. We ensure that new ideas can be quickly put into practice, and we provide students with the necessary tools and networks to drive innovation in the future and be entrepreneurially successful. In a city like Munich, which is considered a hub for technology and startups, such a link between theory, practice, and industry would be indispensable. Within the rich offering in Munich (for example through UnternehmerTUM), we see ourselves as elite support (among other things through small cohort sizes per semester), while other programs focus more on supporting as many students as possible.
New technologies, policy innovation, and deep tech
Munich Startup: Which current developments or topics particularly concern you right now?
Samuel Valenzuela: We see that the introduction of GenAI tools is fundamentally changing the type of software that many startups built in the past in terms of value creation. Distribution and problem understanding are becoming increasingly important for software, while digital and technological implementation in many cases becomes an easily substitutable resource. We are thinking about what this means for our curriculum. Many of our teams are now applying proven methods with the support of AI tools.
What also concerns us are areas beyond traditional software topics where innovation skills can make a decisive contribution. This includes policy innovation to structurally enable tomorrow’s issues. But hardware and deep tech are also part of it. We think a lot about what CDTM’s contribution to these topics can or should be.
Munich Startup: Since spring 2025, you have had your own fund. What was the decisive impetus to take this step now? What strategic role should the fund play for CDTM alumni, startups, and the ecosystem?
Samuel Valenzuela: The fund that the alumni community set up has existed since December 2024. The decisive impetus ultimately came back in 2022, when CDTM alumni found a way to enable investments of less than €100,000 per investor. This is very difficult to achieve in Germany in the venture space due to legal regulations.
“The idea of giving back plays […] a major role in the alumni community”
Munich Startup: Which startups has the fund already invested in? Is there an example that particularly shows how the fund supports the next generation of founders?
Samuel Valenzuela: Since March 2024, the fund has been in active discussions with startups. To date, about a dozen deals have been completed. Some companies held a spot for the CDTM Community Fund in their funding rounds for months until we could finally invest starting in December 2024. A good example of this is Kuro by Lea Scherer and Jonas Minkler.
What’s beautiful about the fund is that a significant portion of the profits flow back to CDTM’s support association. Thus, CDTM not only supports the founders, but they in turn also support CDTM. The idea of giving back definitely plays a major role in the alumni community.
Munich Startup: What visions and goals does CDTM pursue for the coming years?
Samuel Valenzuela: For us, the following also applies to the future: we want to empower, train, and network tomorrow’s innovators. We are committed to continuing to support these people as best we can so that they can implement their ideas and shape the world around them. We are optimists and believe that together we can make a contribution to a positive future.
The interview is the third part of an article series on CDTM. Read the first part here, and the second part here.
