2021
As another exciting year is coming to an end, it’s time to look back and take some time to celebrate. Read on to learn more about how we have grown as ecosystem, community and organization.
Entrepreneurial education
Youth Entrepreneurship Week
2021 was the year of the first big Youth Entrepreneurship Week roll-out – and what a rocket start it has been: More than 1750 students at over 50 schools in all 9 Austrian states were empowered to begin dreaming solutions to their most significant challenges. Ideas were born in topics ranging from waste reduction & recycling to parking & carsharing, solutions for urban & rural challenges, and female health & cultural sensitivity. In this journey, a total of more than 250 inspiring trainers, experts, and sparring partners supported the students on their entrepreneurial journey. Thanks to our supporters BMDW, BMWBF and WKO, as well as to our project partner IFTE, and particularly to everyone who has put their sweat and tears into a crazy year on the path to making Entrepreneurship as common as skiing in Austria. Make sure to follow our adventure as we head onto the second chapter of the Youth Entrepreneurship Week in 2022 by subscribing to our YEW Newsletter or signing up as a supporter!
Entrepreneurial leadership program
A big shoutout goes to the 100 fellows who went through the Entrepreneurial Leadership Program this year. This competitive one year program guides through all the skills and knowhow necessary to found ones own startup in the future. The fellows develop themselves as entrepreneurial leaders through weekly workshops, discussion evenings and hands on work on ecosystem projects & their own startup ideas. We are very happy to see the first alumni starting growing and even exiting their ventures. Shout out to Julia Kruslin and her team of beatvest, who just managed to raise her first round amongst others from N26 founder Max, Alexandra Brandl for exiting Herobox and Anna Sophie to bringing the entrepreneurial mindset into the political ecosystem.
Think tank
Monitor 2020
Bringing facts and figures behind the Austrian Startup ecosystem is one of our most important activities as a think tank. The 2020 monitor put a focus on green startups. It showed that 20% of Austrian Startups worked on a solution for the Corona crisis in 2020 and 65% are pursuing a green or social mission.
Policy Dashboard
With the Austrian Startup Agenda we stated 37 recommendations for the Austrian government, to help creating a more entrepreneurial ecosystem in Austria. 18 of them were implemented in the government program in 2020. With the policy dashboard we track the political developments and bring transparency in the execution of these agenda points.
Future Weekly
Twice a week you were able to listen to Daniel & Markus talking about the latest news in tech, politics & society. With more than 80 hours of published content Future Weekly more than doubled its listener base and got some of the most inspiring brains of Austria's startup scene to share their personal stories, insights & moonshots with us.
Convertible Loan termsheet
Convertible Loans are loans that get converted into equity after some time. Early stage startups often use this form of financing when the valuation is still unclear. We teamed up with aaia and the two law firms Herbst Kinsky and Höhne, in der Maur & Partner to give founders and investors a contract template that they can use as a reference.
COMMUNity
circle 17
In February we had our 2nd Matchmaking event, bringing together corporates and startups to collaborate for sustainable initiatives. In June we celebrated the end of our 2nd circle17 cycle with the whole community at the Touchdown.
