Green Startup Monitor 2022 (Startup-Verband)

Summary

• Green startups now make up 29% of the German startup ecosystem.p.5
• The share of female founders among green startups is 21%, significantly higher than in the startup system as a whole.p.5
• 35% of green startups combine their sustainable orientation with a focus on rapid growth and strong market change.p.5
• For 44% of transformation-oriented green startups, access to capital is a central challenge.p.5
• Promoting innovations to fight climate change (38%) is the second most important core demand of German startups on politics, after reducing bureaucracy (40%).p.5
• Green startups use government funding more often (48%) than non-green startups (42%), and bank loans rose from 13 to 20%.p.15
• For 62% of green startups, promoting climate innovations is among their top 3 demands, versus 29% of non-green startups.p.17

Key insights

1. The share of green startups rose from 21% in 2019 to 30% in 2020 and stabilised at 29% in 2021.p.7
2. More than three quarters of startups (76%) consider a positive societal or ecological impact important or very important.p.7
3. The business model of technology development and production rose from 22% in 2019 and 24% in 2020 to 27% in 2021 among green startups.p.8
4. 37% of green startups rate themselves as very innovative, versus 28% of non-green startups.p.9
5. Only 16% of green startups have financing from strategic investors, but almost half (47%) wish for it.p.15
6. Sustainability matters for 59% of green startups when choosing investors, versus 21% of non-green startups.p.16
7. The share of green startups in the food industry is 46%, in energy and electricity 67%.p.12
8. Almost a third of green startups (29%) are research-related foundings.p.22
9. Capital raising for green startups is no longer significantly more challenging than for non-green startups in 2021.p.14