Technology center and business incubators in Berlin
Technology center and business incubators provide young, technology-oriented companies with consulting services tailored to their specific needs, while also ensuring they have the optimal infrastructure available.
The technology center and the business incubators often connected to them are the think tanks for the innovations of tomorrow. At attractive locations, companies in the industries of the future benefit from shared infrastructure, cooperative networks of business and science, and good transport links. The development of future technologies is promoted through the research and economic policies of the State of Berlin.
Technology center
Technology center are geared towards the settlement of recent start-ups and businesses with a primary focus on the development, production and marketing of technologically innovative products, processes and services. Most of them have their own location management, which offers additional services in addition to space and land management.
Business incubators
Startup centers enable startups and small businesses to enter the business world in a supervised manner. In addition to flex space, young companies will find supportive advice and coaching options for implementing individual company ideas in the incubators. A distinction is made between publicly funded (and partly also operated with public participation) innovation center and incubators and the rapidly growing range of private labs and co-working spaces.
Publicly funded innovation center and incubators
Startups that are primarily active in technology-based industries have been financially supported by the Senate Department for Economics, Energy and Enterprises with funds from the State of Berlin and the European Social Fund (ESF) since 2005. The spin-offs from the startup centers of the Berlin universities benefit from this in particular, but also private sponsors. This gives them access to coaching, mentoring, and training measures that will strengthen their business skills and help them get their products and services ready to launch.
After entering the market, publicly funded startup centers offer particularly good conditions for knowledge- and technology-oriented company startups. Since the establishment of the city's first incubator (Berliner Innovations- und Gründerzentrum BIG) in 1983, 20 further incubators have been launched, each with different areas of focus. These are located in such technology center as
- Adlershof,
- Biotechpark Berlin-Buch,
- Campus Charlottenburg in City-West, and
- Innovationspark Wuhlheide.
The continuous influx of people willing to start a business in Berlin requires new space, which is why further projects are already being planned or under construction. This includes the Business and Innovation Center next to Freie Universität Berlin Campus (FUBIC) in Steglitz-Zehlendorf.
Private labs and co-working spaces
The business models and content-related orientations of the private incubators range from the simple offer of co-working spaces to the qualitative enhancement through joint events, seminars, exchanges and funding programmes to incubators that not only provide startups with infrastructure and expertise, but also with equity capital.
