Funding and support for startups in Germany

A few of my students asked me where to find money for an early-stage idea, and where to get help with it. This is the overview I put together for them, as of the end of October 2026. It covers more than venture capital: free advice, stipends, loans, angels, tax credits, and money from your first customers. Several programs changed this year, so please check dates and amounts on the linked pages before you apply. If your startup is in healthcare, read the post about health startups as well.

Free help and advice

Before you apply for anything, it helps to talk to people who see a lot of startups. Most of that is free.

If you study or work at a university, its startup office is the best first stop. In Cologne, the University of Cologne, TH Köln, the German Sport University and the Rheinische Fachhochschule run their startup support together under the name Gateway. They help with EXIST applications, coaching and office space, and they know the local investors.

Outside the university, STARTERCENTER NRW and the IHK offer free first consultations, and they can also write the expert statement some programs require. In Cologne, STARTPLATZ and Digital Hub Cologne run events and programs where you meet other founders, mentors and investors.

The Gründerplattform from KfW and the federal government is free and has business plan templates, example plans that got funded, online trainings and office hours. To find programs, the Förderdatenbank des Bundes lists federal, state and EU funding, filterable by topic and region. It’s the most complete list, but it takes some time to work through.

Business plan competitions are another way to get feedback, contacts and sometimes prize money. In the Rhineland, NUK has been running one since 1997.

Money from customers

The cheapest money is the money your customers pay you. Many good companies never raise anything and grow from their first sales. If you can find a first customer who pays for a pilot, pre-orders the product or pays you to build a first version for them, you keep your shares, and you learn faster than with any grant, because someone is actually using what you build. Grants and investors are easier to get later, too, once you can show that people pay.

Before or just after incorporating

EXIST is the federal program for startups coming out of universities and research institutions. It has been running since 1998 and has supported more than 5,000 startups. According to the OECD.AI overview, the founder stipend pays between €1,000 a month for students and €3,000 for senior scientists for up to 12 months, plus money for materials and coaching. EXIST-Forschungstransfer is for teams with more research ahead of them and pays up to €250,000 in phase 1 and €180,000 in phase 2. Your university applies together with you and gives you a mentor, so talk to its startup office first. The details are on exist.de.

Gründungsstipendium.NRW pays €1,200 a month per person for up to 12 months, so up to €14,400, according to the IHK Bonn page. Mixed-gender teams can get another €3,600 per person on top. You have to be at least 18 and live in NRW, and the business needs a seat in NRW and an innovative product or service. Teams can have up to three founders. You apply through an accredited regional startup network by sending an idea paper and pitching to a jury, and the network then recommends you.

The Gründungszuschuss is for people who are receiving unemployment benefit (Arbeitslosengeld) and want to start a business. As the Agentur für Arbeit explains, you get your last unemployment benefit plus €300 a month for six months, and then €300 a month for another nine months if you work full-time on the business. You need at least 150 days of benefit left, a statement from an expert body like the IHK, and you have to apply before you start. There’s no legal right to it, so the Agentur has to be convinced the business will work.

SPRIND, the Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation, runs challenges on specific topics and pays teams in several stages for their R&D, with coaching along the way. How much you get depends on the challenge, so read the individual call. Their 2026 venture booklet shows the teams they currently back.

Loans

A loan sounds less exciting than a grant, but it’s often the most realistic option for a business that will make money early. The ERP-Gründerkredit StartGeld from KfW is the standard one. According to KfW, it went up to €200,000 in December 2025, with up to €80,000 of that for running costs. You apply through your own bank, and KfW takes on 80% of the risk, which makes banks much more willing to lend to a new company.

Angels and investors

Business angels are private people who invest their own money, usually in the very early stages, and often help with advice and contacts too. There’s no central list of them, but most regional angel networks are organised under BAND, the German business angel association, where you can find a network near you and apply with a one-page summary.

With NRW.SeedCap, NRW.BANK matches the money a private business angel or seed investor puts in, on the same terms. So once you have an angel, you can double the round. See nrwbank.de.

INVEST is a BAFA grant for the angels who invest in you, which makes your round more attractive to them. Check the current deadlines on bafa.de.

High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) is one of the best-known seed investors in Germany. It invests up to €1 million in the seed round and more in later rounds. See htgf.de.

Venture capital beyond that only makes sense if you’re building something that can grow very large and you’re fine with giving up a good part of the company for it. For a lot of startups, the options above are a better fit.

For companies already doing R&D

The Forschungszulage is a tax credit that a lot of founders don’t know about or don’t claim. As this summary explains, you get 25% of eligible R&D costs back, or 35% as an SME. From 2026 the maximum base is €12 million a year, so an SME can get up to €4.2 million. For projects that start in 2026 or later you can also add a flat 20% for overhead. Software projects qualify if they’re new, carry real technical risk and are planned and documented properly. There’s no deadline.

ZIM is normally the main innovation grant for SMEs, but the IHK reports that no new applications have been accepted since 7 July 2026 because the budget ran short. Projects that were already approved continue. Whether it reopens will only be decided after the 2027 federal budget is set.

EU level

The EIC Accelerator offers a grant of up to €2.5 million, which can be combined with €1 to 10 million in equity from the EIC Fund. Startups and SMEs from the EU and associated countries can apply. According to Open Forest, the last 2026 cut-off is 4 November, and there are no dates for 2027 yet. You start with a short proposal (a 12-page form, 10 slides and a 3-minute video), then write a full proposal, go through an interview and sign the agreement. That takes months, so start early.

What I’d do as a team in Cologne

I’d start by talking to Gateway or STARTERCENTER NRW, because they can tell you in one meeting which of these programs fit. Before incorporating, apply for EXIST through the university or for the Gründungsstipendium.NRW through the local network. At the same time, try to find a first paying customer, because that makes every later conversation easier. If you already have a company, the Forschungszulage is the next step, since it has no deadline and works for software. For a seed round, NRW.SeedCap fits well next to an angel from one of the BAND networks. And if you’re working on something in healthcare, the health post covers the programs and contacts specific to that.