The German Federal Government has published its new startup and scaleup strategy – an update of the strategy from 2022. The result is a comprehensive package: 152 measures, distributed across eight areas of action, developed in a participatory process with around 300 comments from an online consultation and ten stakeholder workshops with almost 200 participants.

Financing as a key area of ​​action

One of the strategy's eight action areas is access to capital. This aligns with the findings of the current  Lower Saxony Startup Monitor 2026  : Lower Saxony recorded its strongest startup year in over a decade in 2025, with 167 new businesses founded. At the same time, financing rounds – both nationwide and within the state – have recently declined, particularly in the early stages. Therefore, further increasing the availability of capital remains a key task for the coming years, both at the federal and state levels.

This is precisely where the new strategy comes in. The Germany Fund will be equipped with additional resources for DeepTech, BioTech, and DefenceTech; the Growth Fund II will mobilize further institutional capital via KfW Capital; and the High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) will be expanded with a new fund generation (HTGF V). The WIN initiative aims to more than double private investment commitments for venture capital to €25 billion. Opening up venture capital to private retirement savings is also an important step in the right direction to mobilize more private capital for the German VC market.

Another instrument from the strategy is venture clienting. This involves established companies becoming paying customers of startup solutions instead of investing in them – a model that should be particularly interesting for Lower Saxony with its strong base of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and industry. The federal government intends to provide more targeted support for venture clienting collaborations through the de:hub initiative.

These are just plans for now – the focus now shifts to concrete implementation. We're eager to see what actually comes to fruition in Lower Saxony and will keep you updated.

Eight areas of action, two new priorities

In addition to financing, the strategy covers education/spin-offs and knowledge transfer, security and defense, reducing bureaucracy, procurement and competition, skilled workers, cooperation, and internationalization and networking. Two key areas are new compared to 2022: The growth and scaling phase is given greater emphasis, and for the first time, the security and defense sector is being systematically considered – companies in this segment will have equal access to funding instruments in the future.

Particularly in the areas of education, spin-offs, and technology transfer, there are points of connection to Lower Saxony's ecosystem work: Entrepreneurship education at universities, the further development of the EXIST funding program, improved IP transfer, and the expansion of real-world laboratories are topics that technology transfer offices and high-tech incubators in the state have long been working on. The planned exchange and networking formats between the federal and state governments also offer an opportunity to directly feed impulses from Lower Saxony into federal policy.

The complete strategy with all 152 measures is available from the  Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE)  .

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