Munich Startup: Start for Future – what exactly is behind it?
nnnnKlaus Sailer, CEO SCE: Start for Future (SFF) is an alliance and an entrepreneurship hub that encompasses universities, startups, industry and public organizations and has set itself the goal of advancing systemic innovation in Europe. To do this, SFF connects regional ecosystems, such as Munich, Barcelona or Edinburgh, with each other in order to jointly support talents and startups, but also to enable co-creation and technology transfer between startups, companies, science and civil society beyond their own ecosystem, for example through well-coordinated programs and activities.
nnnnWe are convinced that by collaborating with many universities and ecosystems in Europe, we can further develop entrepreneurship and thus have a unique selling point with regard to China and America. To take these concerns to the next level, SFF has now officially adopted a new organizational form, namely a European cooperative.
nnnnMunich Startup: Which organizations are part of it?
nnnnPavlina Vujović, Head of International Projects SCE: There are already quite a few universities and their associated incubators actively involved in the SFF alliance, mostly from Europe, but also worldwide, as well as mid-sized and large companies, research and development centers and public organizations representing regional ecosystems. More and more of these partners are now also becoming active members in the cooperative. EIT KICs, the industry-specific knowledge and innovation communities (KICs) of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), are also already part of the cooperative, such as currently EIT Urban Mobility. As drivers and co-initiators from the Munich ecosystem, Strascheg Center for Entrepreneurship and Hochschule München have been founding members from the start.
nnnnleveraging collaborative synergies
nnnnMunich Startup: What goals and visions does the cooperative pursue?
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Klaus Sailer, CEO SCE: The main goal is the promotion of innovation and entrepreneurship at the European level. The cooperative strives to bring a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship to Europe broadly, and by that we mean to all European corners. This should happen in an open, democratic, systemic and sustainable manner by promoting collaboration between universities and innovation actors.
nnnnBy leveraging collaborative synergies, we want to create excellence through volume, that is, by engaging many actors. Therefore, the cooperative aims to promote collaboration and knowledge exchange between innovation actors in a shared internationally well-networked ecosystem. In doing so, joint efforts should be supported to further develop and commercialize groundbreaking concepts and cutting-edge technologies.
nnnnLast but not least, there is value-based commitment. SFF should benefit all of us. The overarching vision is to address societal challenges through entrepreneurial means and mindset. The SFF cooperative is committed to addressing societal challenges and increasing the prosperity of the European population. Its focus on systemic innovation reflects a broad commitment to these goals.
nnnnAdded value through co-creation
nnnnMunich Startup: Why is it worth becoming a member of SFF?
nnnnPavlina Vujović, Head of International Projects SCE: Simply put: there is an incredible amount to gain through collaboration and co-creation. In this respect, SFF also offers diverse added value for the various partners.
nnnnUniversities and incubators benefit from shared resources and networks and can, for example, also make a good offer to startups and innovation teams that are not located in their own fields of specialization by jointly using the enormous pool of experts and highly specialized coaches for a wide variety of topics.
Scientists, academics as well as external business and network partners benefit from SFF’s access to entrepreneurship and innovation training and MOOCs as well as a shared research group. Academics also develop courses together, coordinate on topics and content or conduct them jointly.
Students, talents and early-stage startups have the opportunity to work together on their projects and innovative solutions and implement them in an international founding team. For support and mentoring, they can draw on the entire SFF network. We call this in our Open Incubation Program “from zero to hero”.
For all innovative companies and network partners, it is a fantastic opportunity to benefit from the know-how and resources of the university network and to collaborate with the best and most innovative talents, startups and collaboration partners worldwide. At the same time, they can help shape both the definition of the most pressing societal challenges and the search for solutions through entrepreneurial activities. In doing so, they learn to apply new disruptive and systemic innovation approaches through collaborations.
nnnnConcrete support for startups
nnnnMunich Startup: The cooperative is also to promote startups and offers investment opportunities. How does this work in concrete terms? Can you name best practices?
nnnnPavlina Vujović, Head of International Projects SCE: Startups gain access to global experts and mentors and can, for example, visit an incubator in a regional ecosystem that is particularly relevant for their industry in order to build their own network there if needed. In the last round of the SFF Open Incubator, one of Start for Future’s core programs, we introduced new co-creation opportunities and mobility formats for startups to explore possibilities in the partner ecosystem with the support of the host incubator. We are pleased to see that international startups perceive this format as very attractive. This year we had a Spanish startup as a guest in Munich that wanted to explore collaboration with German companies in the hydrogen sector and was also able to conclude a partnership. The Italian startup Clearchain from our partner university Pisa was also successfully admitted to the SCE incubator and was able to benefit from the offers in the Munich ecosystem and especially the AI+ Munich program. In this way, startups gain access to industry-specific companies but also to the investor networks of SFF partners.
nnnnIn addition, we connect startups with partner offerings in the later phase, such as the EIT KICs, and initiate promising co-creation processes. One example of this is the collaboration with the EIT Urban Mobility Venture Builder Program, through which startups with innovations in the field of sustainable mobility receive support from EIT Urban Mobility in further scaling and financing. Similar is how collaboration with EIT Manufacturing works. We regularly alert our startups to these opportunities and create space for investors and business angels to present their offers. In this way, we can achieve much greater impact and create a more effective roadmap for startup development. SFF is thus the perfect door opener for all partners and a bridge between projects from the university environment and incubators to further scaling.
nnnnStart for Future: strong resonance in a short time
nnnnMunich Startup: What successes can Start for Future already show?
nnnnKlaus Sailer, CEO SCE: After launching the initiative about two years ago, we are positively surprised by the rapid growth and the strong resonance we have encountered. I was particularly pleased when last year the then EU Commissioner for Innovation and now Bulgarian Prime Minister, Mariya Gabriel, recognized our alliance at the first Start for Future Summit as a European best practice initiative for implementing the ‘New European Innovation Agenda’, that is, the defining European guideline that is intended to return Europe to earlier innovation power and technological leadership, or at least to catch up again. As Mariya Gabriel said, it is crucial for this to both promote deep-tech innovations and network innovative regions with each other, as SFF demonstrates.
nnnnMunich Startup: Where should the cooperative develop over the next few years?
nnnnPavlina Vujović, Head of International Projects SCE: Currently we have 53 partners in the alliance, with a tendency to grow rapidly. Of these, 18 partners were already official founding members at the founding of the European SFF cooperative. But we have much bigger plans and want 1,000 universities from 500 regional innovation ecosystems, with a focus on Europe, to be part of and actively involved in the cooperative by 2035. If we achieve this, it will be possible to support and drive forward one million startups and founding ideas by then. Our next ambitious milestone on the way there is 100 universities by mid-2025. We want to achieve excellence by engaging as many talents, innovators and startups as possible, to make Europe a thought leader in systemic innovation and a livable future. Of course, everyone is invited to participate equally in the SFF cooperative!”
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