The revamped fund will now support innovations from Germany’s other research organisations
Constantin Häfner will take up his new position as Fraunhofer executive vice president of research and transfer on February 17. Photo credits: Markus Jürgens / Fraunhofer
Germany’s leading applied research organisation, the Fraunhofer Society, is giving its spin-out fund a boost, with a planned capitalisation of €90 million. The fund will also be opened up to the country’s other research organisations.
The new TT49 fund builds on a previous Fraunhofer Technology Transfer Fund, offering pre-seed funding to spin-outs in all technology fields, except for drug research, which is considered too costly and time-intensive.
According to Constantin Häfner, the Fraunhofer Society’s executive board member for tech transfer, the fund has been a key instrument in getting Fraunhofer’s innovation to the market.
“Germany has an innovation ecosystem and Fraunhofer is one of the main drivers in the background,” Häfner told Science|Business. “Being an engine, you need to have a transmission to deliver power to the wheels, right? In Germany, we think about the TT49 as the transmission belt.”
One key novelty is that the new TT49, which is…
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