From scientific breakthrough to commercial success
German universities and research institutes enjoy an excellent reputation worldwide – and so do their spin-offs. Three examples.
German start-ups such as the aircraft manufacturer Volocopter and the language software DeepL are known worldwide. These are just two outstanding examples of hundreds of successful German start-ups. Many of them are spin-offs from universities or large German research institutes such as Max Planck, Fraunhofer, Leibniz or Helmholtz. A number of them have become “unicorns” within a few years, i.e. they have achieved a company valuation of more than one billion dollars. The spin-off leader – and not just among the universities – is Technical University of Munich (TUM), which has produced nine unicorns. Three examples of successful start-ups:
TUM: Synthesia makes videos using AI
Led by TUM professor Matthias Nießner together with London-based scientist Lourdes Agapito and two entrepreneurs, this spin-off develops software that produces deceptively natural videos which are used for learning purposes, for example. The company says its main focus is on preventing deepfakes, i.e. fake videos of real people. Founded in 2017, Synthesia 2023 has already achieved unicorn status.
TU Chemnitz: Staffbase gets colleagues communicating
Martin Böhringer and Lutz Gerlach knew each other from when they both worked at Chemnitz University of Technology. The two had already tried their hand at a start-up when they met Frank Wolf – and the idea for Staffbase was born. Staffbase is an app that enables internal employee communication in companies of all sizes – something that’s more in demand than ever in times of mobile work and working from home. This is reflected in the company’s success: founded in 2014, it has been a unicorn since 2022.
DLR: Agile Robots controls robots
A spin-off of the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), the Munich-based company develops software that controls (industrial) robots, and it also makes robots. Its main goal is to combine artificial intelligence and robot technologies. Long-standing researchers at the DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics Zhaopeng Chen and Peter Meusel founded Agile Robots in 2018, and the company is now considered a unicorn.
