Current Initiatives in Frankfurt
The event end on January was not only talk, but many of the concept were materialised. TechQuartier that was officially opened last week was the concept developed by the official parties based on the many ideas presented. Aurelis proceeded with their startup co-working project Vabn. Accelerator Frankfurt concept presented at the event was founded and launched 19th of September. When the refurbishment of TechQuartier is completed it will be our new home.
Some projects not part of the Hessen initiative started independently such as the Fintech hub from Deutsche Börse. We have two established incubators in Frankfurt the Main Incubator by Commerzbank and Unibator by Goether Unversity. Coworking spaces are offered by Fintech HQ, Gründermachine, meetnwork and Die Zentrale.
Accelerator Frankfurt program brings Israeli startups to Frankfurt
Being the first accelerator in town Accelerator Frankfurt fills many voids. One of them is attracting foreign startups to Frankfurt. Three of the eight startups in our program are from Israel. The uniqueness of Accelerator Frankfurt is that we are able to appeal to foreign and domestic startups to the program. Frankfurt has traditionally not been an option especially not for Fintech startups who either go to the US or London. Brexit made many reconsider the London option and this time the odds are on Frankfurt. Proximity to customers such as banks and the HQ of many central players such as ECB, BaFin and Deutsche Börse gives Frankfurt an edge compared to Berlin and other cities in Europe.
Startups in Accelerator Frankfurt’s autumn program with Demo day 16th of January 2017. Alyne (RegTech, risk insights as a service), BeeEye (FinTech, credit scoring using machine learning), Cindicis (SaaS, contextual intelligence platform), Fenror7 (Cybersecurity for enterprises), Pronteo (peer to peer FoodTech), SchnellSpesen (FinTech, automated expense management), SecuredTouch (Cybersecurity for mobile devices) and Wroomer (e-finance platform for used cars).
What two things we need to keep the momentum?
For Frankfurt to be successful collaboration, competition and transparency is needed. To keep the momentum these can be compressed to two things; coopetition; to maximise value creation and transparency for open communication and accountability. The criteria’s for a well-functioning startup hub are functioning ecosystem, attracting talent and creating culture of innovation. This takes time to develop, nonetheless Frankfurt has taken the steps to the desired direction.
We who care about Frankfurt and are passionate about startups, should continue to unite our forces to make Frankfurt attractive even sexy in the eyes of the startups and investors. A great example of this is the joint demo day being planned for 16th of January.