Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft

Technology Transfer

Shareholdings and spin-offs

At the reporting date, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft held equity investments in 83 companies across a broad range of sectors. The transfer of technology to industry formed the focus of activities at 53 of the companies in the investment portfolio, while a further 21 equity investments were of a strategic nature. Equity investments also include 9 affiliated companies. In 2025, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft invested a total of €3.5 million in the acquisition of equity interests in shareholdings. The portfolio was expanded by another four companies, with the Fraunhofer- Gesellschaft investing €0.4 million in their share capital. Furthermore, 3 foreign Fraunhofer affiliates were reclassified as affiliated companies following a reassessment. These had previously been listed under other legal forms for information purposes. Fraunhofer also sold its shares in 4 companies during the same period. The total carrying amount of shareholdings (including shares in affiliated companies) increased to €36.8 million (previous year: €36.0 million). Proceeds from the divestiture of shareholdings came to €1.9 million.

Spin-offs are an integral part of Fraunhofer’s strategy for leveraging its industrial property rights. In individual cases, Fraunhofer takes a minority equity stake in the spin-off as part of its technology transfer activities. In 2025, Fraunhofer Venture provided support to 89 new spin-off projects. Across Fraunhofer as a whole, 29 new spin-offs were established.

Fraunhofer has set itself the goal of increasing not only the number of spin-offs but also their proportional contribution to overall industrial revenue. Fraunhofer’s innovation hub AHEAD offers a package of targeted entrepreneurship measures and programs to help achieve this. Overall, 60 teams took an active part in the Fraunhofer AHEAD program in 2025. In-depth workshops and coaching sessions are provided to teach entrepreneurship. Fraunhofer AHEAD offers a networking platform for early-phase spin-off and licensing projects with the national entrepreneurship ecosystem. As well as the general AHEAD program, there are also specialized tracks in the fields of Sustainable Development Goals and life sciences.

Patent applications claiming rights of priority 2021 - 2025

Exploitation of intellectual property rights

In 2025, Fraunhofer continued to pursue its intellectual property (IP) strategy with a clear focus on securing long-term patent protection for inventions with strong potential for exploitation. The institutes are aligning decisions on patent applications and maintenance even more closely with strategic and economic criteria to ensure that resources are used efficiently and IP portfolios streamlined further. The Fraunhofer institutes are also making extensive use of the far-reaching international coverage offered by the EU unitary patent. In 2025, 589 inventions were reported and 538 patent applications claiming rights of priority were submitted. The European Patent Office’s Technology Dashboard 2025, formerly the Patent Index, identifies the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft as the leading European research institution for patent applications. The portfolio of active patent families remained stable year on year at around 7,000. This shows that the targeted focus and consolidation of the IP strategy is proving successful, allowing Fraunhofer to maintain a high level of intellectual property protection even in increasingly challenging economic conditions.

In general, Fraunhofer generates revenue from the commercial exploitation of IP rights by concluding licensing agreements. In addition, IP can also be contributed to patent pools or exploited through the sale of IP. The most successful of these pools consist of patents for audio and video encoding. Together with other patent holders from different countries whose patents are relevant to standards, Fraunhofer uses various patent pools to issue licenses on a worldwide basis. The revenue from these pools is reinvested in pre-competitive research, thereby helping strengthen Germany’s position as a research hub for the long term. Revenue from the licensing and sale of IP amounted to approximately €200 million.

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