With the establishment of the TT49 fund, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft aims to contribute to the financing of technology start-ups in their early stages. The new generation of funds is being created in close partnership with the European Investment Fund (EIF) and, for the first time, with other investors like the German Aerospace Center DLR. Also numerous private investors—including renowned entrepreneurial families and hidden champions—have joined and invested substantially in the fund.
The name TT49 stands for Technology Transfer and the country code +49 for Germany. This is a pre-seed fund focusing on financing spin-offs from the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and, for the first time, from other non-university research institutions such as the DLR, Helmholtz Association, Leibniz Association and Max Planck Society and their partner universities. The potential is huge. These four organizations alone have an annual budget of around 15 billion euros, spread across 275 institutes, with an increasing number of incubator programs for researchers and spin-offs. The investments are technology-neutral, with the only exception at present being drug research, which is often very time-consuming and costly. In principle, all start-ups from the European science system can be financed if they have a scalable business model with a competent team and clearly regulated IP access.
Third-party investors are welcome
“The first closing at over 70 million euros exceeded our expectations and underscores the level of interest in the fund—despite the very difficult current market conditions,” says Holger Hanselka, President of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. “Our core mission is to transfer scientific ideas into real-world application. I am therefore particularly pleased that, with this fund, we can provide another strong instrument—alongside our incubator programs such as Fraunhofer AHEAD and our successful support of founders by Fraunhofer Venture—to optimally back deep-tech start-ups in Germany. Additional investors now have the opportunity to commit and invest through the fund in promising, well-prepared start-ups. They benefit from an attractive investment model with access to innovation and a strong European partner network.”
Fraunhofer initiated TT49 in collaboration with the EIF as the successor to the Fraunhofer Technology Transfer Fund (FTTF), which financed a total of 39 spin-offs between 2019 and 2023. “Innovation must not fail due to a lack of funding,” says Constantin Häfner, Executive Board Member for Research and Transfer at Fraunhofer. "TT49 will help us turn excellent research from Fraunhofer and our partner organizations into marketable solutions at an early stage, thereby strengthening Germany's innovative capacity and competitiveness. The fund combines our mission to translate technology into real-world applications with a professional, economically viable investment approach that benefits deep tech startups and investors."
The structure of the fund also enables investors who typically invest in later stages to participate after this early development phase. The TT49 Fund is a private investment vehicle structured as a traditional VC fund and pursues clear return targets. “Close collaboration between incubators, founders and TT49 makes it possible to quickly translate innovative research results into marketable, sustainable and scalable solutions through start-ups,” says Tobias Schwind, General Partner of the TT49 fund. “In this way, we are strengthening the innovation hub of Germany and Europe and offering fund investors attractive, impact-oriented return opportunities with strategic added value.”
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft