Access the largest pool of potential innovators in Berlin

We enroll each year more idea-stage Founders than any other local institution.

And put their solution to the test in just 14 weeks.

Spot & foster world-changing solutions first with FI Berlin
Corporate Innovation Berlin

They trust our expertise with idea-stage Founders

Platinum Partners

Lubomila Jordanova Mentor Founder Institute Berlin

Lubomila Jordanova

Mentor, CEO & Founder at planA.earth

A fantastic collection of thinkers and doers

The Founder Institute Berlin’s community is a fantastic collection of thinkers and doers, all gathered by the ambition to build companies driven by passion and ambition!

 

Honoured to be a mentor and support such incredible entrepreneurs on their journey!

Your Corporate-Startup Journey Starts here

You want to

  • Explore new solutions to existing problems
  • Explore new problems that need solving
  • Build innovative products
  • Disrupt your industry
  • Generate new business
  • Explore new business models, in a matter of weeks
  • Get to an MVP fast
  • Strengthen your industry leadership through innovation
  • Boost your company’s innovation and digital transformation
  • Keep the risks and costs down

Then Founder Institute Berlin is your all-in-1 solution.

We will support your innovation endeavor by providing the structure and guidance young entrepreneurs need to validate a new idea and get to an MPV fast.

FI Berlin Ferdinand Muehlhaeuser

Ferdinand Muehlhaeuser

Lead Director of the Berlin Chapter

“FI BERLIN FOR CORPORATE INNOVATION IS A LOW-COST AND LOW-RISK ALTERNATIVE TO  INTERNAL INNOVATION LABS AND LATER-STAGE ACCELERATORS AND INCUBATORS, WITH POTENTIALLY HIGH-RETURNS. OF COURSE, WHAT YOU GET OUT OF IT DEPENDS ON YOUR OWN COMMITMENT.”

Why us

What makes us the best accelerator to

support corporate innovation ?

With the Berlin Chapter, intrapreneurs and Founders you sponsor will be supported by a structured growth process that has proven to help move quickly and efficiently, and reduce the time and cost to building a startup.

Our program is notoriously hard because growing and sustaining a business is much harder. This is especially true for ideas in the innovation and impact space.

We ask our Founders to commit 25 hours to the program on a weekly basis, minimum.

They will be challenged and supported every step of the way, to ensure their solution stands on solid ground and they are equipped for what comes next.

We have reach you can use

  • We have a local Meetup community of aspiring Founders of 10 000+ members
  • We have an active LinkedIn community of 1800+ existing and aspiring Founders
  • We hold public events with 1000+ aspiring entrepreneurs yearly – just in Berlin
  • Globally, FI supports the launch of 1000+ businesses every year

We are an ecosystem of positive change

  • 40% are female-led companies
  • 40% are Climate Impact entrepreneurs, and all Founders integrate a SDG into their solution

It’s a low-risk environment to test new ideas

Can your team turn their idea into a scalable business? That’s what we will help them figure out.

We provide invaluable knowledge from top Mentors and deliver decades of startup and entrepreneurship experience in an intensive 14-week offline format. And now since Covid19 hit, in an online format too.

FI spans worldwide across chapters in 200+ cities and 6 continents, with a global community of 25,000+ Mentors, Grads and CEOs of many successful companies.

In Berlin specifically, Founders will have the direct support of 50+ high-profile Mentors during the semester, and access to an extended network of 400+ local Mentors. Among them: Lubomila Jordanova, Stefan JĂžrgensen, Fabian Geyrhalter, Laura Kohler, Javier Rincon, Kyrill Zlobenko, Natacha Neumann, Antony Tikhonov, Regine Harr, Patrick Knodel, Dr. Fabian Heilemann, Felix Krause, Fabian Kofler… and many more.

You’ll get to shape the future by supporting ideas that matter

We are the first FI chapter in the world with a dedicated Climate Impact track alongside the regular curriculum, running since 2019. We are supported in our ambition to make sustainability and industry standard by star Mentors from Earlybird, Vireo Ventures, Future Energy Ventures and Innovation for Impact to name a few.

Impact Companies that address UN SDGs

We support entrepreneurs that focus their creativity and will on building “Impact Companies”. To help them be successful, we sign-on to support actionable metrics that guide entrepreneurs of all kinds on their quests to create Impact Companies that address UN SDGs, and have created a definition for “Impact Companies” that includes:

  • The mission to align with one or more UN Sustainable Development Goals
  • The offering directly influences a measurement of impact, an Impact Key Performance Indicator (iKPI)
  • iKPIs publicly displayed and updated on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis

Now, facing perhaps the biggest test to humankind and the future of the planet, it will be up to entrepreneurs to work together with governments and large companies to create Impact Companies to solve humanity’s most pressing issues.

Read next: Our Invitation to Entrepreneurs and Startup Organizations Worldwide : A Joint Pledge for Responsible Innovation

You’ll be “the first”

Contrary to other early-stage accelerators, we welcome anyone with just an idea for a Startup — and a bright entrepreneurial mind. This uniquely positions us first row to spot the best and most disruptive solutions early on, for any given industry.

We actively contribute to Berlin’s diverse and fastest-growing early-stage entrepreneurial ecosystems: close to 500 startups are created every year in this city; since 2019 the Berlin Chapter alone created more than 50 startups.

Since 2010, we have trained 500+ people and helped create 100+ companies with a survival rate of 60% by year 3.

By leveraging this unique access to early-stage Founders, you will get the rare opportunity to spot innovation and world-changing solutions first.

We will be your “ready-made innovation lab”, for a fraction of the cost

We bring the experience, the structure and the resources. Enroll your teams or sponsor external Founders for a fraction of the cost of creating your own innolab — and zero risk.

You will leave your mark on the local scene

  • Be our exclusive sponsor for the Climate Impact Track and help build a better tomorrow with world-changing businesses
  • Or let us work together on creating your own Innovation Track
  • And if you would like to ease your way into being part of our mission, you can just start with a single entrepreneur or intrapreneur to sponsor in our existing tracks

You could have been the first to spot eCoating

Clean Ocean Coatings (eCoating) graduated from our program in December 2020. The founding team is on a mission to help clean the ocean with a biocide-free, mechanically resistant antifouling coating system made of polymers and polymer composites that has a minimum impact on the ocean ecosystem.

Leave your mark on the local scene

Be our exclusive sponsor for the Climate Impact Track and help build a better tomorrow with world-changing businesses. Or let us work together on creating your own Innovation Track.

Enroll your own team into our next batch, or sponsor ideas developed by external teams through our program.

Our program is notoriously hard because growing and sustaining a business is much harder. 

We ask our Founders to commit 25 hours to the program on a weekly basis, minimum. We expect intrapreneurs and corporate-sponsored teams to work full time for faster results.

They will be challenged and supported every step of the way, to ensure their solution stands on solid grounds and they are equipped for what comes next.

Accelerate your company’s growth with early-stage startups that combine assets and capabilities, and transform your industry together.

With the Berlin Chapter, intrapreneurs and sponsored Founders will be supported by a structured growth process that defines your next steps, helps you move quickly, and has proven to reduce the time and cost to building a startup.

Last bit not least, our program is a fraction of the cost of a dedicated innovation lab.

Our recent graduates

Tech and Innovation for Impact

Clean Ocean Coatings

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Mavuno Technologies

Mavuno Technologies uses Sentinel 2 satellite data to increase harvest yields of farmers in developing countries. It was founded in December 2020 by FI graduate Jakob Röhrenbach and his brothers.

mavuno fi berlin graduate

In January 2021, Mavuno Technologies organized a launch event for their AgriTech mobile app MVP to a community of 200+ local smallholder farmers and early-adopters in Mtwara, Tanzania.

Founder Institute Berlin, together with REAKTOR.BERLIN where the team is pursuing their startup journey, were present to support the cause, and we couldn’t be more proud of these #worldchangers!

To find out more, visit: mavuno.tech

François

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Corporate Innovation Berlin

Become a Sponsor

  • Enroll your own team into our next batch
  • Sponsor ideas developed by external teams through our program
  • Sponsor our Climate Impact Track
  • Create your own Track

Various options are available. Let’s talk!

Stay in touch

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We will offer you insights, practical tips and think pieces for navigating disruption, impact and the need for forward-thinking entrepreneurship in this age of necessary change & innovation.

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How to meet us!

We are working in hybrid mode, with most of our sessions happening online combined with a few core sessions we execute offline and a series of pulic meet & greet events! You can find all our event programming on https://fi.co/events!

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