Germany needs people who courageously break new ground and take risks to do so.” Following this conviction of the traffic light coalition, they want to “create the best possible framework conditions” and “also break new ground themselves where this is necessary”.

This insight and self-commitment is the core of the draft for the first comprehensive start-up strategy of the federal government, which the Federal Ministry of Economics presented at the beginning of June.

It is remarkable and to be welcomed that the Federal Ministry of Economics has tackled this project, which is anchored in the coalition agreement, within the first 100 days of taking office.

And the content of the paper is hardly less ambitious.

It would be more than just a signal for Germany as a start-up location if the federal cabinet made this start-up strategy its project with the resolution planned for the end of July.

The Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology has created a to-do list in ten fields of action, from financing and employee equity participation, which is a key topic for start-ups, to data access and knowledge-based spin-offs, which it intends to work through “within this legislative period”.

What particularly stands out is the intention to introduce “a capital stock in statutory and private pension schemes” with a “minimum investment quota in VC funds” (venture capital funds).

This measure could rightly be described as a turning point for the German start-up financing landscape.

A corresponding capital stock for statutory and private pension schemes would give the venture capital market, which is traditionally weak in Germany, new and previously unimagined impetus and sustainably strengthen the financing situation for German and European start-ups.

Prevent system collapse

This is urgently needed.

Because even if there has been a sharp increase in venture capital investments in Germany in recent years with consistently high returns, there is still a lack of large-volume European venture capital funds that would be able to secure large financing rounds with several hundred million euros from European tech companies to lift.

And even if the investment climate has cooled down noticeably in the past few weeks, in the future it will be even more important than in the past to finance the growth course of German scale-ups with European capital in order to produce global players "made in Germany" - and then to keep them here too.

With the growth fund, one of a total of eight modules of the future fund that has already been decided and totaling 10 billion euros, a financing vehicle has recently been created that for the first time aims to mobilize the capital of private, institutional investors, such as insurance companies or pension funds, but even this complex construct will not help to overcome the existing structural weaknesses.

The situation is different with the development of a capital stock in the context of old-age provision for investments in venture capital funds proposed by the Federal Ministry of Economics: Such a capital stock addresses the causes, it not only conceals the structural weaknesses and alleviates the symptoms, but changes them the structures themselves and ensures