Founders Factory, hubraum launch Berlin based Venture Studio

Founders Factory, a global company builder and early-stage investor from London, and hubraum, the tech incubator of Deutsche Telekom, are launching a new venture studio based in Berlin.

Through the joint venture, both aim to build, finance and launch innovative digital companies. This constitutes an entirely different approach for hubraum, whose investment fund normally invests in existing startups.

In contrast to this, together, hubraum and Founders Factory will partner with entrepreneurs to develop new concepts, before hubraum funds the startup. In addition to financial support, European founders will benefit from Founders Factory's network and operational support as well as access to Deutsche Telekom's network technology, experts and customers.

"We have been investing in startups via our hubraum investment fund since 2015. Founders Factory with its 'venture' approach to building companies adds an exciting new capability to how we work with entrepreneurs. Through the joint venture, we want to jointly innovate beyond Telekom's core business and collaborate with and invest in founders around the globe. Our ambition here is to digitalize the telco area,"

Axel Menneking, Head of hubraum, says, explaining the strategy of the joint venture. The venture studio’s headquarters will be in Berlin. Here, hubraum and Founders Factory will work together to build a portfolio of new innovative pan-European tech startups over the coming years. The fund is particularly interested in working with startups that are developing types of technology that can support or change the future of telecommunications. The new companies are expected to focus on technology-driven solutions in areas such as the future of commerce and advertising, Enterprise IoT, Data Privacy and Digitized Telco.

Henry Lane Fox, CEO of Founders Factory, said, "Berlin is a primary choice for founders and startups thanks to its infrastructure, talent and vibrant community. In this post-Covid world, the city continues to grow and excel in areas like fintech, edtech, mobility and more. Our new Berlin venture studio combines Founders Factory’s operational prowess with DT’s world-leading infrastructure and services to support exceptional entrepreneurial talent in building Europe’s next generation of digital businesses.”

Founders Factory's first engagement in Germany
The collaboration with hubraum marks Founders Factory’s expansion into Germany and Berlin’s maturing tech ecosystem, which attracted €10.5 billion investment and 60% of Germany’s total startup funding in 2021. The introduction of the Berlin studio builds on Founders Factory’s venture building success worldwide, which to date has created over 80 startups from scratch, including robotics and kitchen automation startup Karakuri and AI shopping app Nate. hubraum is eager to support the creation of startups which aren’t just compelling for Deutsche Telekom, but for the rest of the ecosystem, too. As such, the incubator was excited to work with outside voices, to avoid any danger of tunnel vision and so that the two companies could complement each other’s skillsets.

The collaboration was announced on the occasion of hubraum's tenth anniversary. Over the past decade, hubraum has run 22 programs, hired an international team across three locations (Berlin, Krakow, Tel Aviv), made 34 investments, supported 16 exits, all while reviewing 10,000 leads. Thanks to this, they boast a portfolio of startups from 13 different countries, including places like Australia, Israel, South Korea and the USA.