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Der Campus Nord ist abgebildet. Im Zentrum des Bildes der Mathetower. © Roland Baege​/​TU Dortmund

BRYCK Startup Alliance becomes Germany’s Startup Factory

Delegation of the BRYCK Consortium with the newly presented award. © ​Dominik Butzmann​/​BMWE​
The delegation of the BRYCK Consortium, including the Rector and the two Rectors of the Universitätsallianz Ruhr, pictured with the newly presented award.
On July 10 2025, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Katherina Reiche honoured the BRYCK Startup Alliance as one of Germany’s Startup Factories. The decision was announced during a ceremonial award event at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy in Berlin. The consortium from the Ruhr region impressed a high-profile jury in the nationwide EXIST Startup Factories lighthouse competition. As a result, the BRYCK Startup Alliance will receive multi-million-euro funding to establish a European deep-tech hotspot in the Ruhr region.

The BRYCK Startup Alliance will receive funding of up to €10 million over several years and has set itself the goal of accelerating groundbreaking deep-tech innovations in Germany while establishing a high-performance start-up centre closely connected to universities and industry, with international visibility. In doing so, the Ruhr region will not only be strengthened as a start-up hub – it will become a model region for Germany’s industrial future. The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy is funding ten Start-up Factories across Germany, all of which prevailed in a two-stage competition among roughly two dozen initiatives.

The BRYCK Startup Alliance brings together the strengths of the Ruhr region: the highest density of higher education institutions in Europe and the economic power of one of Europe’s most important industrial locations. It is founded on strong regional collaboration between academia, industry and capital. With the University Alliance Ruhr, the three research-intensive universities – Ruhr University Bochum, TU Dortmund University and University of Duisburg-Essen – are key partners in the alliance. On the industrial side, the business alliance Initiativkreis Ruhr, comprising more than 70 leading regional companies and institutions, is actively involved. The RAG-Stiftung contributes through the innovation and start-up centre BRYCK, which it initiated, as well as through its strong network and private-sector capital.

Over the next five years, the BRYCK Startup Alliance aims to establish a high-performance Start-up Factory in the heart of the Ruhr region. By 2030, the objective is to generate at least 1,000 spin-offs, support more than 200 scaling deep-tech start-ups and mobilise over €1 billion in venture capital within the ecosystem. The focus will be on three business areas: Future Industry, Future Life Science and Future Cities. These include, for example, developments in intelligent systems for production and logistics, renewable raw materials, personalised medicine and smart cities. A range of programmes is planned along the various phases of company formation, including scalable accelerator programmes for deep-tech start-ups.

The three universities intend to continuously raise awareness of entrepreneurship among their 100,000 students and 14,000 researchers, while expanding and aligning their teaching and professional development offerings accordingly. Academic leaves of absence for founders are to be facilitated, and processes for patent transfer accelerated. The alumni network will also be activated to identify role models, advisers and potential customers. To this end, the Centre for  Entrepreneurship & Transfer at TU Dortmund University, the WorldFactory at Ruhr University Bochum and the Zentrum für Gründungen und Innopreneurship (GUIDE) at the University of Duisburg-Essen have been working successfully together for several years.

The industry partners, in turn, provide support in market analysis, product development and access to capital. A structured gateway to more than €10 billion in venture capital is to be created. The historic, listed Colosseum – a former industrial hall in Essen – will become the home of the BRYCK Startup Alliance.