StartUpConnect
As part of the “StartUpConnect” initiative, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) supports startups by students and academic staff in the field of future communication systems.
Further information can be found in the guideline for funding startups in the field of communication systems – StartUpConnect as part of the communication systems research program “Souverän. Digital. Networked.”, Federal Gazette of 06.10.2023
The Cube 5 team advises and supports founding teams and startups throughout Germany in the application process and accompanies them throughout the entire process.
![](https://cube-five.de/wp-content/uploads/StartUpConnect.jpg)
The purpose of the funding is to quickly transfer research results on future communication systems with high innovation potential from research to application. To this end, researchers at universities and non-university research institutions as well as young companies are to be supported in the further technological development of research results, taking into account application requirements, in order to shorten the time to market maturity. Individual projects by people interested in founding a company at universities and non-university research institutions are funded for up to twelve months in phase 1 and young companies are funded for up to 24 months in phase 2.
Phase 1 – Development phase
The aim of the first funding phase, the development phase, is to demonstrate the technical feasibility of a start-up idea (“proof of principle”).
Phase 2 – Implementation phase
In the second phase, the focus is on pre-competitive research and development work that favors the rapid market launch of research results as a product or service after the end of the project.
To be eligible for StartUpConnect funding, startup projects must be compatible with the topics of the German government’s research framework program on IT security Souverän.Digital.Vernetzt.
Souverän.Digital.Vernetzt.
Here you can download the research program “Souverän. Digital.Vernetzt” as a PDF document (in German):