A strong industrial region that has always been characterized by a start-up spirit, as well as good support and financing offers: North Rhine-Westphalia offers founders attractive conditions for their start-ups and promotes them with various initiatives.
In the latest NRW Start-up report, which was compiled by KPMG on behalf of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Protection and Energy, 57% of respondents stated that they consider the state's start-up ecosystem to be good or very good. The reasons for this include good support right up to the start-up phase and many events where start-ups can present themselves, network and exchange ideas. However, the efforts that the country has made in recent years to further improve the start-up climate were also cited as a reason.
Start-ups accelerate the transformation
The country sees start-ups as key drivers in the transformation process. They strengthen the economy with entrepreneurial courage and innovative solutions for all areas of life and thus sustainably change the way we work, communicate and live together.
Focus on social entrepreneurship
Many NRW start-ups not only strive for financial success, but also want their business models to have a positive impact on the environment and society. 34 per cent of the founders surveyed define themselves as social entrepreneurs. The social impact of their product is at least as important to them as economic success. In this year's NRW Start-up Report, we have therefore focussed on social start-ups and their special features.
Florian Merkel
Director, Tax
KPMG AG Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft
Mood of the North Rhine-Westphalian start-up ecosystem
The aim of this study is to gain deeper insights into the start-up scene in North Rhine-Westphalia in order to identify potential for the further development of start-up-friendly framework conditions. To this end, 110 people were surveyed online on relevant topics relating to the NRW ecosystem. We have summarised all the results on topics such as sources of funding, bureaucratic hurdles, sales and customer acquisition as well as social entrepreneurship in the NRW Start-up Report 2023, which you can download here.
