Digital Hub Initiative
The Digital Hub Initiative, known as de:hub, is a German federal government network of regional centers for technology innovation. Each hub connects startups and researchers with established businesses around a particular industry or technology. Regional specialisms include financial technology, logistics and artificial intelligence.
Startups need partners to test products, while established companies need access to new technical ideas and expertise. The Digital Hub Initiative helps these organizations find one another through specialist contacts and joint projects. Its regional hubs and programs connect this work with innovation partners elsewhere in Germany and abroad.
How the de:hub initiative works
In April 2017 the ministry added seven hubs, among them Cologne and a cybersecurity hub in Darmstadt next to the fintech hub in Frankfurt, which brought the total to twelve. The network now has 25 hubs. Each hub is run by a local organization, and hub managers match companies with startups and researchers. The central office, hub:agency, sits in Berlin.
For companies, de:hub describes five steps: name a challenge, choose a program format, find an innovation partner, run a pilot, and scale what works. Companies can use the Program Finder to search by location, audience or program type. The de:hub Journey takes owners and decision-makers of small and mid-sized businesses to hub test labs and coworking spaces to meet potential project partners. The initiative also runs a Pitch Night and trips to foreign startup ecosystems.
The finance hubs: Frankfurt, Berlin, Cologne and Munich
Two of the 25 hubs carry fintech as their sector. In Frankfurt, the fintech hub is TechQuartier, whose shareholders are WIBank Hessen, Goethe University, TU Darmstadt and the City of Frankfurt; de:hub writes that in Frankfurt "everything revolves around money". In Berlin, the fintech hub is run by the House of Finance and Tech, with Berlin Partner and the Berlin Finance Initiative as partners.
A fintech founder at either hub can register in the Start-up Finder, where corporates, mid-sized companies and investors search more than 1,000 startups from all de:hubs and contact them directly. Banks find the programs of both fintech hubs in the Program Finder. At the de:hub Pitch Night, selected startups pitch to investors and corporate leaders.
The two insurtech hubs are InsurLab Germany in Cologne and InsurTech Hub Munich. Outside finance, Darmstadt works on cybersecurity, Karlsruhe and Saarbrücken on artificial intelligence, and Munich has a second hub for security and defense.
Upcoming fintech events in Germany
What is the Digital Hub Frankfurt?
The name refers to two organizations: TechQuartier operates the de:hub fintech hub in Frankfurt. Digital Hub FrankfurtRheinMain e.V. is a separate association that the City of Frankfurt, through its business development agency, founded in 2011 with companies such as the internet exchange DE-CIX and the data center operator Interxion; Journal Frankfurt reported (in German) that it set out to show the region's role as a digital node. That role depends on the infrastructure of data centers for finance in Frankfurt.
Who can work with a de:hub?
De:hub addresses small and medium-sized companies and corporations that look for startups or researchers to solve a defined problem, and startups that want such customers. The first contact is the hub manager of the city and sector that fits.
The Digital Hub Initiative and Finance Loop
Finance Loop holds events at TechQuartier, the Frankfurt de:hub and a strategic partner of Finance Loop, and connects the finance, IT and AI communities in Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin and Hamburg. Startups and companies from any de:hub that work on finance can meet banks, insurers and asset managers as members, through a sponsored meetup or webinar, by hosting an event or through a partnership. Fintech growth describes the route into the German finance market.
Finance Loop is a professional network supporting the institutional use of emerging technologies in finance, such as AI, digital payments, cloud and blockchain solutions. Finance Loop helps its members build skills and personal networks in these fields: Investment & Digital Assets, Payments & Digital Money, Digital Infrastructure & Sovereignty, and Risk & Compliance.