Good ideas need not only time but also money to become marketable products. The German research landscape has had good ideas for generations and has enjoyed a good reputation worldwide for decades. However, successfully bringing the results of research and development to market is often initially a question of the necessary start-up capital.

Most young researchers, although they have an innovative idea, lack the collateral to get a loan the traditional way. The times to obtain private capital from venture capital companies or other investors are still difficult. The risk for early-stage technology investments is too high for most investors. Furthermore, young companies in the technology sector are often confronted with long development and sales cycles. Financing their research and development projects on their own, even to the point of market maturity, is not easy for them. This makes it all the more important to find a financing partner in the start-up phase who understands the technology and can help the company successfully enter the market.

However, the market for seed financing dried up almost completely between 2000 and 2005. In 2005, German investment companies made a full 20 investments in the start-up sector. Measured against the size of the German economy, this is insufficient. Getting seed capital for start-up projects in the technology sector was almost impossible at the time. For the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, other industrial companies and KfW Bankengruppe, it was therefore obvious to set up a fund for innovation financing in 2005 in order to provide a targeted boost to the severely declining seed market.

At the time, High-Tech Gründerfonds was itself considered a start-up in the market for early-stage financiers. After the first five years of investment, its portfolio now includes around 200 highly innovative technology companies - the selection from more than 2,700 submitted start-up projects was not always easy.