Case Study Markus Dahlem

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GERMANY CAREER GUIDEb AFFORDABLE CHILDCARE THE ROLE OF THE STATE Germany’sTO RELAX stringent ITS MIGR regulatoryATION POL ICY c a Philipp Engelkamp, a co-founder systemAND A TandTRA privacyCT MORE laws. SKILL ForED of the renewable-energy start-up example,WORKE RLangemakS FROM O UsaysTS IaD long-E THE EU. firm Ineratec in Karlsruhe, says standing ban on treating patients CASE STUDY that public funding was crucial IN 2018, GERMANY remotely has made things tough when he and his partners were DRAFTED A LAW for telemedicine-oriented start- MARKUS DAHLEM trying to get their business off ups, and companies in the health the ground. Ineratec’s product TO RELAX ITS space have to first win over Ger- No more career headaches. — a compact chemical reactor MIGRATION POLICY man insurers, as most patients that can convert waste gases into are used to being fully covered. liquid fuels and other chemicals AND ATTRACT (Germany’s doctor’s association — is based on decades of research recommended lifting the ban last at the Karlsruhe Institute of MORE SKILLED year.) Technology. WORKERS FROM And there’s a lingering cultural Engelkamp and his co-founders bias against researchers commer- applied for funding with the help OUTSIDE THE EU. cializing their own work. “Many of the Karlsruhe Institute, where medical doctors and researchers several of the founders were want to be entrepreneurs, but based. Ineratec secured funding to help make its don’t feel comfortable with the way business is research commercially viable, including more done,” says Langemak, who trained as a doctor than €1 million in grants for equipment and before earning an MBA. “They struggle to com- stipends for the founders, sourced from funds municate why this is a great product.” at the state and federal level. Steffen Terberl, head of the Profund Inno- The iPhone didn't even exist when One of Ineratec’s key funders was EXIST, one vation office at the Free University of Berlin, Markus Dahlem wrote his first of the country’s most prestigious incubators. admits that more experienced researchers have business plan in 2004. But the Since 2006, the programme has given out over traditionally seen spin-offs as a distraction. migraine researcher still thought €500 million to more than 2,000 projects. “They are often afraid that their fundamental that there might be a market for The money is channelled through universi- research would suffer,” he notes. predictive algorithms that could ties and comes in the form of either a business help migraine sufferers to tame their start-up grant to support researchers for a lim- OPEN TO THE WORLD crippling headaches. ited time as they work to launch companies or Terberl says that at universities in Berlin and Dahlem, a theoretical physicist by as a transfer of research grant of €1 million on elsewhere in Germany, an influx of research- training, wound up shelving the idea. average for translating more expensive, high- ers from abroad — particularly from countries However, by 2015, his academic risk projects into commercially viable products. with a long tradition of bench-to-business career had stalled. Other funding schemes include state-level translation efforts, such as the United King- That’s when he got a call asking programmes. Berlin, for example, offers a six- dom, Israel and the United States — is helping whether he’d be interested in month stipend to teams who leave the German to change that academic culture. working on a migraine-tracking capital’s research institutions to start a firm. And And the start-up scene itself is as open to start-up firm. “I didn’t think about many states offer similar support to entrepre- scientists from abroad as the university system. staying in academia for a split neurs emerging from their university systems, Nationality, entrepreneurs say, is no barrier second. Nowadays, it’s a start-up such as the Junge Innovatoren (‘Young Inno- when it comes to accessing funding or working that can change the world and have vators’) programme in Baden-Württemberg, in the start-up scene. Take Clue, a menstruation- an impact on society,” he says. which Engelkamp and his partners tapped tracking app founded in Berlin in 2012 by Ida “With the advent of digital health, I when they were starting Ineratec. Tin, a Danish entrepreneur. As the app has felt like it was the right time to start grown to encompass more than 10 million with the app.” BRINGING IN BUSINESS SENSE active users, Tin has recruited researchers from He left his guest-researcher Another key element of EXIST and many other around the world to relocate and work at the position at the Humboldt University funding programmes is an emphasis on teams company. “Germany has pretty generous visa of Berlin to co-found Newsenselab, and training. The groups that are successful in laws, and that’s crucial for us,” Tin says. “It’s a the Berlin-based company behind their funding applications often feature team good place to attract and retain talent.” the M-sense migraine-tracking members with a Master of Business Adminis- There’s a flip side to generous public support, app. He and his co-founders were tration (MBA) or equivalent experience in addi- however. Engelkamp and Langemak say that awarded a business start-up grant tion to members with a research background. German researchers are often too concerned to help them get off the ground. The Bringing in business talent is essential, with perfecting their product and are not com- stipend helped Dahlem to support because the majority of German researchers fortable with the ‘fail fast’ ethos that is prevalent his family while getting the app into lack industry experience. “Most researchers among their US counterparts. shape. “That soft transition was have never had the experience of working at German investors, too, are less eager to make needed for me as an academic,” a company, let alone running one,” says Jas- big bets. Banks and venture-capital funds need Dahlem says. “My co-founders were per Emeis, a business-school graduate who is to be won over, often through a painstaking, 15 years younger and single, but I working with Schmitt to get Grown Valve off months-long due-diligence process. However, had my family to pay for.” the ground. “They’re totally overwhelmed by Engelkamp says that this is not a substantial Newsenselab has since received the business part.” problem: “You can find money in Germany, two rounds of seed funding. Dahlem For researchers looking to spin their research and we have. But this ‘moonshooting’ vision still lives in Berlin, close to his former into start-up gold, conditions in Germany have of growing very big and not caring about the colleagues and research network. “At never been better — but that doesn’t mean Ger- initial investment is missing.” ■ the end of the day, it’s more about many is the best fit for every business. Medical- what you want,” Dahlem says. A.C. technology start-up firms have to contend with Andrew Curry is a journalist in Berlin.