Financing
of startup projects
You have an innovative startup project and are looking for funding or seed capital to implement your startup idea?
The supervisors in the CEDUS team help to identify suitable funding programs and mediate financing options as well as investors during the process of setting up an enterprise. They connect entrepreneurs to funding institutions, banks, business angels and venture capital organizations.
In addition to state and federal funding programs, the Heinrich Heine University offers additional financing options for HHU startup projects. For technology-based startups, regional and national seed funds for external seed capital are also available.
Subsidies for founders
We support you in finding the right funding program and help you with the application process.
The funding initiative VIP+ promotes scientists to examine and prove their research results potential and to open new scopes.
The validation is supported by theories of natural and technical scientific fields as well as by humanities, social sciences and cultural studies.
The application procedure is a single-level process.
The maximum funding term is three years.
For further information regarding VIP+ please click here.
HHU has received approval for EXIST-Women from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection. This funding will enable the Female Entrepreneurship Incubator (FEIN) to be launched at CEDUS in January 2024, which is explicitly aimed at women at HHU who are interested in founding a company and is intended to support them in their start-up project.
All interested women can apply for the second batch until November 17th, 2024 using the following form: EXIST-Women application form
All information about EXIST-Women at HHU can be found here: https://www.cedus.hhu.de/exist-women
The NRW startup grant is aimed at founders who want to realise their business idea in the field of future-oriented technologies and innovative services and business models in NRW. The aim is to support founders before and at the beginning of their business startup.
Funding is available for individual founders or teams of up to three people who have their place of residence and centre of life in North Rhine-Westphalia and are pursuing the start-up project as their main occupation. It is also a prerequisite that they either want to become self-employed with a company in NRW within the next twelve months or that this business start-up has already taken place within the last twelve months. The time frame for setting up a business is therefore up to one year before and one year after applying for a grant. The funding itself is provided for a maximum of one year.
An idea paper must be submitted for the application and a short presentation must be given to a jury. The jury dates are published on the Internet on an ongoing basis. Contact with CEDUS or another start-up network is a prerequisite.
Further information can be found here.
The EXIST Business Start-up Grant promotes ambitious innovative start-up projects in the early stages. Founders from universities are supported in the conception of a business plan for their founding idea.
It should be about
- innovative technology-oriented start-up projects or innovative
- knowledge-based services based on scientific evidence.
The maximum funding period is one year.
For further information regarding EXIST Business Start-up Grant please click here.
The funding is intended to support people from NRW who are willing to set up their own company in order to further develop research results/know-how with great market potential and a convincing business concept and to implement them in the establishment of their own company. The program supports projects based on technological, business or social innovations.
The application procedure is a one-step, six-monthly process.
The maximum funding period is 18 months.
For further information regarding Start-up Transfer.NRW please click here.
EXIST Research Transfer supports outstanding research oriented projects that involve expensive and high-risk resource development.
The program has two phases of funding:
- In the first phase, results of research that have the potential of becoming the basis of a start-up business are developed further. The objective is to carry out further resource development to clarify fundamental problems involved in converting academic findings into technical products and processes. The business concept based on these findings should be made into a business plan and the planned business start-up should be prepared systematically.
- In the second phase of funding further resource development, measures to start business operations and meeting the prerequisites for external business financing are at the centre of interest.
For further information regarding EXIST Research Transfer please click here.
With the Biotechnology Start-up Initiative, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is funding research teams with a life sciences focus that are ready to set up a company. The funded working groups should pursue new research approaches in the life sciences and prepare their commercial utilisation in a targeted manner.
The GO-Bio-Initial programme supports innovative ideas from the life sciences and promotes the identification and development of early life science research approaches with recognisable innovation potential. As part of the project implementation, a degree of maturity of the research results should be achieved that enables continuation in other established funding programmes for validation, start-up and company cooperation funding, such as VIP+, EXIST research transfer, KMU innovativ (https://www.bmbf.de/bmbf/de/forschung/innovativer-mittelstand/kmu-innovativ/kmu-innovativ_node.html) or GO-Bio next (see below).
Funding is provided in an exploratory phase (concept work, max. 12 months) and a feasibility phase (proof of principle, max. 2 years).
Project outlines can be submitted once a year, by 15 February.
The GO-Bio-Next programme takes appropriate account of the long development periods and high financial requirements typical of biotechnological research projects. In addition, extensive accompanying measures prepare the teams specifically for the foundation and activities in the start-up company.
In the first funding phase, the application potential is worked out and evaluated by the teams (max. 3 years). This phase is in the academic field, but preparatory measures for setting up a company are already taking place. This is accompanied by the development of concrete commercialisation strategies for further implementation based on the scientific results. In the second funding phase (max. 3 years), these strategies are transferred to commercial realisation. Recipients of funding are the companies that are then founded, which must raise private sector co-financing as an important prerequisite for funding.
Project outlines can be submitted twice a year, on 15 March and 15 September.
For further information on the biotechnology start-up campaign and the Go-Bio initial and Go-Bio next funding programmes, please click here ( https://www.go-bio.de/gobio/de/home/home_node.html ).
Participation of TTHU GmbH
Via its subsidiary TTHU GmbH, the HHU can participate in its university spin-offs.
TTHU GmbH fundamentally strives to secure an initial participation in a spin-off and in return receives shares in the company or a share of turnover or profit. It generally acts as a minority shareholder.
Other seed financing then takes place, for example, through the High-Tech Gründerfonds and/or the Sirius Seedfonds Düsseldorf.
External Financing
You can find a listing of some Düsseldorf investors here.
For many years the Stadtsparkasse Düsseldorf supports research and teaching at universities of the state capital. As one of the regional most successful founders bank they offer promoted by other strong partners like state capital Düsseldorf and the NRW.BANK individual solutions for innovative financing projects.
Services:
- Feedback on business plan
- Individual finance solutions
- Use of public subsidies
- Business insurances
- Private additional insurance
- Company pension
- Mediation of collaboration partners
For further information please click here.
The High-Tech Gründerfonds is a common project of the federal government, the german industry and the KfW Banking Group to finance the initial capital of technology-based founding projects.
Since 2005 the High-Tech Gründerfonds finances young technology companies at good rates and actively assists the management with a strong network and entrepreneurial knowledge.
For further information please click here.
Sirius Venture Partners invests directly in entrepreneur-led companies from the late seed phase to the expansion phase in technological growth markets through its own funds. Investment decisions are not only made according to opportunities, but also pro-actively based on own continuous market monitoring and presence.
Sirius Venture Partners' investments are structured as follows:
- Minority investments
- Equity investments in several financing rounds with an initial minimum investment of EUR 500k up to total financing rounds of up to EUR 5 million per investee company
- Private and public investment syndicates to form larger financing rounds of up to EUR 15 million
- Lead or co-lead investor
- Seat on the supervisory board or advisory board as well as support and coaching until exit (e.g. IPO or trade sale)
For further information please click here.
1stMOVER is an incubator for start-ups who develop innovative products and services of mobile web: a mobile web incubator. They collaborate with a network of experts in the field of business development, product and project management, coding, design, marketing, PR and sales.
For further information please click here.
Companisto is the investment platform for startups and growth companies. Business angels and investors participate in groundbreaking innovations, promising companies, and ideas that write history through venture capital. As a fintech company, Companisto stands for lean processes, specialized knowledge and efficient solutions and is the innovation driver in the field of professional online business financing. In a diverse society, Companisto takes responsibility for the founding culture in Germany and Europe.
For further information please click here.