Frankfurt’s Startup Ecosystem Prospers with Fintech and Cybersecurity
Germany
Frankfurt
Activation Phase
Frankfurt Rhine-Main’s entrepreneurial ecosystem is leveraging its strengths in Fintech, AI, and tech talent. Nearly every university is involved and there’s a recent uptick in public investment and cross-ecosystem collaboration.
Sub-sector Strengths
Cybersecurity
More than 450 researchers in Darmstadt, a city near Frankfurt, are focused on cybersecurity and their activities are aggregated within the Center for Research in Security and Privacy. Acellere, a startup minimizing code errors and task prioritization, raised $2.5 million in a Series A round in 2018.
Fintech
Home to the European Central Bank, Deutsche Bundesbank, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, and 85 multinational banking headquarters, Frankfurt has both Fintech talent and corporate demand for innovation. Many German and international banks in the city have Fintech programs, including Deutsche Bank’s Digitalfabrik and Helaba Digital. Over 50% of local VC investment went into Fintech startups between 2012 and 2017 and the largest German Fintech exit of all time took place in Frankfurt when Forex trading company 360T was acquired by Deutsche Börse for $800 million in 2015.
Why you should invest in Frankfurt
SOFTWARE STARTUP OUTPUT
300-500
GLOBAL AVG.
1,010
ECOSYSTEM VALUE
$1.7 bn
GLOBAL AVG.
$5 bn
Top 25 Global Ecosystem
Fintech
Top 20 Global Ecosystem
Knowledge
1
Exit Growth
INDEX
INDEX
8
Output Growth
INDEX
INDEX
6
Funding Growth
INDEX
INDEX
Reasons to move your startup to Frankfurt
Abundant resources
There are over 3,300 angel investors in Frankfurt. Startups in Frankfurt enjoy a supportive environment that includes 32 incubators, 24 coworking spaces, and 10 accelerators.
Access to talent
Frankfurt boasts talent from top universities like Technische Universität Darmstadt and Goethe University
Startup Community
Startup Genome
Partners & Members
Accelerator Frankfurt
Blackprint Booster
candylabs
Commerzbank
Deutsche Bank
Deutsche Börse Group
DZ Bank Gruppe
EY
Frankfurt Economic Development
FrankfurtRheinMain
Get started by Bitkom
Goethe University Frankfurt
Hessen Trade & Invest
Hessian Ministry of Economics
IHK Frankfurt
ING-DiBa
KPMG
Merck
Provadis Hochschule
Rhein-Main Startups
RKW
start zero
TU Darmstadt
WIBank
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