Fewer startup programmes, more businesses without a successor: what the two trends have in common

Two studies, two worlds. One counts the startup programmes of large corporations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The other counts small and medium-sized businesses that need a successor. Read together, they show something neither says on its own: if you want to become an entrepreneur, programmes for building a tech startup are getting rarer. The path through an existing business, on the other hand, is open more often than ever.

What the Startup and Innovation Monitor 2026 shows

Now in its ninth edition, the Startup- und Innovationsmonitor 2026 by valantic looks at the 130 companies in the DAX, MDAX, ATX and SMI indices. The key findings:

• 61 of the 130 corporations run at least one programme of their own for startups. In the DAX, it is three out of four.
• The study records 114 in-house programmes, 17 fewer than the year before.
• The number of accelerators fell by a quarter, the number of incubators by a third.
• Venture capital units grew slightly and, for the first time, make up more than half of all in-house programmes.
• Startups increasingly get access through jointly run platforms: 116 cooperation programmes with 231 participating companies.
• The focus is on technology such as artificial intelligence, defence and dual use, as well as construction and real estate.

The authors put this in context themselves: fewer programmes do not mean less commitment to innovation. A growing share of collaboration runs through investments or through models where the corporation becomes the startup's customer. For founders, it still means that hands-on formats with cohorts and support are getting scarcer, and they are almost always aimed at tech startups with their own product.

What KfW and IfM show about succession

Two German sources on succession in small and medium-sized businesses are often mixed up. Both are reliable, but they measure different things.

The KfW Nachfolge-Monitoring Mittelstand from January 2026, published by the research unit of Germany's state development bank, asks owners about their plans. The result: by the end of 2029, around 545,000 businesses want to arrange a succession, while around 569,000 plan to close. By the end of 2026, 186,000 planned handovers compare with around 243,000 planned closures. These are intentions, not completed handovers.

The IfM Bonn, an institute for research on small and medium-sized businesses, instead estimates how many family businesses will be ready for handover between 2026 and 2030. It only counts businesses whose earnings are high enough to make them attractive for a successor. This gives around 186,000 handovers over five years, a national average of 52 per 1,000 businesses.

The two figures do not contradict each other, and they should not be added together. KfW shows what owners are planning, including very small businesses. IfM shows how many businesses are economically fit for handover. That both arrive at 186,000 is a coincidence: for KfW, it is the number of planned handovers by the end of 2026. For IfM, it is the estimate for 2026 to 2030. How the IfM figures are spread across the German states is shown on our page Succession by region.

Where the two trends meet

KfW names the bottleneck itself: too few founders are coming forward who are qualified to take over a business. At the same time, the monitor shows that the classic support for founders at large corporations is shrinking and concentrating on technology. If you want to take on responsibility and run a company without inventing a new product, you barely feature in this landscape.

Yet the conditions are good. A business up for succession has customers, a team and revenue. According to KfW, owners hope for an average price of around 499,000 euros, with the median at 0.6 times annual revenue. Many businesses are therefore within reach with equity, a development loan and a vendor loan. Our article on financing a succession explains how that works in practice.

What this means for you

• If you want to found a company: check whether you would rather build on something that exists than start from zero. The successor test gives you a first assessment.
• If you want to hand over a business: starting early pays off. According to KfW, owners who want to hand over by the end of 2026 are already 66.5 years old on average.
• If you quote the figures: KfW for owners' plans, IfM for family businesses fit for handover, and always with the time period.

Our approach

Nachfounder is a programme for people who want to work as entrepreneurs and for businesses looking for a successor. We prepare successors for a takeover, introduce them to owners in person and support the process in stages. No M&A consulting and no marketplace. Find out more on the pages for successors and for owners, or go straight to the succession check.