True to the motto "The best idea is of no use to anyone if it is not exploited" (Walter A. Heiby), various competitions offer you as students, founders and inventors the opportunity to apply for funding with your ideas for innovative products, novel services and processes. In advance, we offer to support you in preparing for the competition.
Here you will find an overview of competitions:
Ideas Competition
Rhineland-Palatinate
Since 2009 the "Ideas Competition Rhineland-Palatinate" has offered all residents of Rhineland-Palatinate from pupil to students to scientific employees the opportunity to present ideas and have them evaluated by a competent jury of experts consisting of independent representatives from science, business and politics. Ideas can be products, novel services or even processes that are based in a business field, company or environment and do not yet exist in this form. Suggestions for improvement are also welcome. Any number of business ideas may be submitted. The application period begins October 2023 and ends February 2024.
For more information, visit: www.ideenwettbewerb-rlp.de.
startup innovativ 2023
Rhineland-Palatinate
In the course of digitization, new business ideas are increasingly being developed for which there are not yet any examples, whose market penetration is difficult to assess and whose financing is therefore difficult. While funding instruments already exist for the share of such business ideas that use new or further develop technologies for this purpose (e.g., innovation funds), this does not yet exist for innovative business ideas that use new technologies but do not develop them further.
Eligible are persons who have already founded a company. At the time of application, the company must not have been founded more than 3 years ago. The company must be based in Rhineland-Palatinate. Participants of the past competitions "startup innovativ", who were not winners so far, may apply again.
startup innovativ takes place by way of share funding through the granting of a one-time subsidy. The grant is awarded for a period of 12 months in the amount of up to 75 percent of the eligible costs. The funding ranges from a minimum of 10,000 euros to a maximum of 100,000 euros per start-up project. A competitive process is used to select the start-ups and start-up projects to be funded.
This year's application phase runs from March 15 to May 15, 2023.
A large number of entries have reached us over the last few months in the course of the 1,000-Euro-Challenge. Not only the mass of entries, but also the commitment behind them has inspired both us and the jury. We would therefore like to take this opportunity to thank you very much for the numerous, strong ideas!
For the announced competition, an economic concept was to be developed, which deals thematically with a fictitious investment of 1,000 €.
For more information, visit: https://www.finanzcheck.de/info/1000-euro-challenge/.
1,2,3,Go! Business Plan Competition
This business plan competition is not only a competition for innovative ideas, but also offers coaching during preparation. After submitting the business plan, it is evaluated by jurors.
For more information, visit: www.123go-networking.org.
Pioniergeist: Your concept - our founder award
Entrepreneurs who have founded a startup company within the last five years or are planning to do so this year can apply for the "Pioniergeist Startup Prize". Prizes will be awarded for the best startup concepts. There is also a special prize for the best startup idea. The call for entries for the Founder's Prize is a joint initiative of the Investitions- und Strukturbank Rheinland-Pfalz (ISB), the Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken in Rhineland-Palatinate and the Südwestrundfunk (SWR). The competition is intended to help further promote the establishment of self-employed businesses in Rhineland-Palatinate.
For more information, visit: www.pioniergeist.rlp.de.
You can apply to "startsocial" with an idea or a project that is interested in finding a sustainable solution to a social problem, focuses on people, is predominantly supported by voluntary work and has a project base in Germany. Individuals and teams as well as institutions or companies can participate in the competition. "startsocial" is aimed at innovative ideas and projects that are about to be implemented as well as projects that are already underway and need targeted advice. Participation in "startsocial" is independent of the degree of realisation and maturity of the idea or project. The different status will be taken into account in the jury's assessment. The uniqueness of the project idea is not a prerequisite for participation in startsocial. Rather, the transferability of an initiative is evaluated ("Would the project idea also be realisable in other places?").
For more information, visit: www.startsocial.de.