Key promotional area: Start-ups and general corporate finance – business sector Mittelstandsbank (SME Bank)

Start-up and succession financing to secure competitiveness and jobs

Start-ups are very important for the national economy. With their courage to become self-employed and launch new products and services, start-ups drive development, stimulate competition and create jobs. KfW offers start-ups and young businesses a range of different financing programmes as well as advice as a means of promoting start-up activity in Germany.

KfW recognises successful start-ups (German page)

Graphic key promotional area start-ups and general corporate finance

Current trend

The employment record on the labour market once again curbed Germany's start-up activity in 2017, with the number of start-up entrepreneurs down year-on-year by 115,000, or 14%, to 557,000 persons. So it is all the more important that KfW increased the volume of its start-up promotion again to EUR 3.8 billion despite the surprisingly pronounced decline in start-up activity.

Find out more

Corporate succession remains a key issue within the SME segment

On the one hand, demographic change means that more small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are seeking successors every year. The succession exchange platform nexxtChange helps them in this endeavour. On the other hand, Germany's historically healthy labour market situation is resulting in lower start-up activity and thus less successor potential. A total of 240,000 owners of small and medium-sized enterprises with more than 2 million employees are planning to have handed the reins over to a successor by the end of 2019. Delays or failure in business transfers puts investment, competitiveness and jobs under pressure.

Current financing offers for start-ups and young companies, as well as established companies (in connection with corporate succession)

	Start-up/young company			Company
Loan prgramme	ERP Start-Up Loan – StartGeld	ERP Capital for Start-Ups	ERP Start-Up Loan – Universal	KfW Entrepreneur Loan
Applicant	Private individuals Small companies aged up to 5 years	Private individuals for projects in SMEs aged up to 3 years	Private individuals Companies aged up to 5 years	Companies aged 5 years or older
Maximum loan amount	EUR 100 thousand per applicant	EUR 500 thousand per applicant	EUR 25 m per project	EUR 25 m per project
Share of financing	Up to 100%	30% (western states) 40% (eastern states) Subordinated loans	Up to 100%	Up to 100%
Exemption from liability	80% obligatory	100% obligatory	50% possible*	50% possible
Commitment volume 2017	EUR 238 million	EUR 111 million	EUR 3,438 million	EUR 5,105 million