Startup founders in Germany are urging the federal government to accelerate the pace of reform significantly. While Christoph Stresing, the managing director of the startup association, acknowledged that the government’s actions-such as inviting startup representatives to cabinet discussions and passing the recent “Start-up and Scale-up Strategy”-demonstrate genuine interest in the future economy, he stressed that these signals are not enough. According to Stresing, the focus must now shift to swift and ambitious implementation, as “time is running against us.”
The association believes the primary challenge lies in mobilizing more capital for growing companies. Stresing clarified that the industry does not face a capital shortage, but rather an “allocation problem”: the funds are available, but they are not being reinvested adequately into future-oriented ventures.
He highlighted the pension sector as a major potential lever for change. Stresing advocated for making the venture capital asset class more accessible across all three pillars of retirement savings. He suggested that this move would benefit not only high-growth companies but also the individual investors themselves.
