Hans Elstner on German startup policy in a live ntv interview
The problem isn’t the start – it’s the follow-up
The 152 measures in the government’s startup and scale-up strategy are a start, says Elstner - what matters now is implementation: “It’s important that this gets very concrete now, that it’s clearly defined who does what with which budget, and how the whole thing is measured.” He identifies speed as the core structural problem - for visas as much as for company formation. His proposal: a fast lane for startup formation, plus quicker work visas for AI specialists.
Ideas and early-stage capital, by contrast, are not what’s missing: “What’s missing is the follow-up.” Many startups stall on growth funding and end up raising in the US - “we build something up, and then it leaves.” In AI, he sees Germany’s opportunity in industrial, application-specific solutions. His additional demand: verifiable targets for technology transfer out of universities, for customer access, and for public-sector contracts.
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