More start-ups in Central Germany again

67 new start-ups within six months in Central Germany alone. This is shown by a study that has now been presented by the German Start-ups Association.

The scene is on the rise, including in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, says Jannis Gilde, who is responsible for research in the association: "What characterises Central Germany is the strength of the university locations, i.e. Dresden, Leipzig and Jena. These are places where potential founders have a basis for setting up companies."

The Central German start-up scene has its centres in Leipzig and Dresden. In the last six months, 36 of the 67 newly founded start-ups in Central Germany were established in these two cities.

80 to 90 per cent of start-ups fail

The increase can be seen as a success, although it should be noted that the study says nothing about how many start-ups actually make it.

Jannis Gilde assumes that a large proportion of the new companies will disappear again: "There are estimates that assume that between 80 and 90 per cent of these companies fail. You have to ask yourself what failure means, but only a very small proportion of them actually become really big companies."

According to the study, a particularly large number of new start-ups are now being recorded in the tourism industry. In contrast, start-ups continue to falter in the once so successful cryptocurrency sector.

Less courage to invest in times of crisis

The challenges in the start-up scene are no different overall than in the economy as a whole, says Eric Weber, head of the Leipzig start-up network Spinlab. And the challenges are: Skilled labour and the courage to invest. This is precisely what has been lacking across Germany in the last year or two: "The last few years have been heavily characterised by various crises. I hope that I can now interpret this to mean that the overall mood is brightening again and more people are deciding to become self-employed," says Weber.

However, the number of new start-ups in Dresden and Leipzig cannot keep up with other regions in Germany. Berlin, Munich and Hamburg in particular are way ahead. In Berlin, for example, 262 new start-ups were founded in the past six months. Taking the population into account, that is more than twice as many as in Leipzig, for example.

News from "mdr" from 12 July 2023